Digimon Savers: Zero Hour
by Onixflame the Blue
Summary: With the Digimon threat growing every day, the D.A.T.S organization authorizes the creation of teams to try and combat greater Realizations. Follow Agent Liam and the adventures of the first international team.
1. Chapter 1

**Fore notes: Hey all, and welcome to my first public fanfic. I enjoy writing and I've written some projects that have not seen the light of day outside a few friends of mine, as well as some on an old profile I can't seem to access anymore. I've also loved Digimon for a good long while, since it first came out really, and I've decided to make a project that you lot could read. Right now I have some friends helping me write this until I can keep the story going on my own legs, but I have been having a lot of fun so I expect the amount of help I'll need will dwindle soonish unless some unfortunate real life obligations keep me from doing so.**

**This fanfic is set in a world I've seen many other incarnations of, a Savers/Data Squad type world with more agents than in canon and also an alternate universe where all the seasons kind of mingle. One of my goals for this story is to have the branches of DATS not in Yokohama, Japan more active than they were in the actual series. Seriously, the only one from a different branch that meant anything was Thomas.**

**Now, whether this will follow all the plot points of Savers/Data Squad or any of the other seasons I'm trying to decide on, but right now I'm firmly in the 'possibly if I can mess with it like a whole hell of a bunch'. I'll probably move this off in the way back to Japan eventually, as that place seems to be the center of the world in this series. And really, what sort of Digital Godzillas won't take to just stomping on through that place?**

**I currently have a buffer of chapter as I wanted to get ahead in the story before posting, but I have no idea where the hell I'm gonna take this before the inevitable canon plot will rear its head so I can get my mitts all over it and begin twisting it into unrecognizable states. I'm pretty much writing by the seat of my pants, so if you all see me try to start up a plot point only to drop it later… Tell me, so I can try to keep that thread going. Otherwise I might not catch it myself.**

**Anyway, might as well stop stalling and let you guys start reading. I'll try to keep any fore notes from now on as short as possible.**

**(Might as well add in that I don't own Digimon though, but seriously if I did this is what Savers would have been instead of what we got. Plus I would have done a whole lot of stupid stuff with the previous and later series' as well.)**

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><p><span><strong>Digimon Savers: Zero Hour<strong>  
><span><strong>Chapter 1: New York Peril<strong>

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><p>There was a loud set of knocks on the door leading into the office. It was a nice looking office, all things considered, if rather small. The walls were painted was a nice off white color, the cabinets and desk were of sturdy mahogany wood, there was a window that showed off the impressive New York skyline behind her (though it was actually a TV screen connected to a series of cameras that she could change feed too if she wanted to), and let's not forget the important part of the room; the occupant.<p>

She wasn't a bad looking woman, kept her brown hair short and covered by a fedora hat that she wore even indoors, along with the Standard DATS Commander uniform of large overcoat - only an off white like the paint of her walls. She looked to be about middle aged.

Commander Harriot White, as that was the woman's name if you looked at the name plate on her desk, looked up from some important documents for a moment before calling out in an authoritative voice, "Come in." She returned to her paperwork as the door opened and in came her guest, whom she'd been honestly expecting for a while.

"Yo." Came the easygoing voice of a young man, wearing a simple button up white shirt coupled with black slacks, and rather nice straight black shoes. He wore sunglasses, which he removed upon entering the room. "I got a call on my DIC saying it was urgent. I came as quickly as I could, so what's going on? I've got rehearsal in two hours so let's not mince words."

The woman gave a short laugh, shaking her head lightly. "That's what I like about you, kid. You just want to skip right to business; wish everyone was like that. Well," Commander White put her pen down and took off her reading glasses, folding her hands in front of her. "So I know, I take it you've been noticing the frequency of Realizations across the county, right? And not all of those being adorable little critters we don't have to Eggify to get back to the Digital World?"

"I have noticed that." The young man said, sighing. "Last time I was nearly late because of that strange giant Black Gatomon. Even Dolce in her champion form was having a rough time of it."

"It's not just something that's happened with only you; even our agents in Europe are having troubles." White replied. "So I had a chat about it with the other Directors and Commanders in our other Agencies, and they agreed; we're going to have to start consolidating our man-power; meaning, we're going to have to start making our agents gather into teams." She looked at him seriously. "And since I know you're a smart boy, I think you can guess exactly why I called you here to tell you this."

"A team? While working another job? You know double time doesn't go over well." He replied, scratching the back of his head. "But if you really want me on a team, I'll do my best to accommodate."

"I don't just want you on the team, I want you to gather together the agents you think you work best with and hash out who would be the leader of your little group while out on missions." The woman looked up at the young man with a sober expression. "It won't be another job; it'll still be the same job. You'll still have to spend the same amount of time on it; you'll just be spending it with some potential assholes whose you'll faces you might want to punch in."

"Ah." He flipped open a pouch on his belt (Previously hidden by his shirt), he pulled out his DIC (Digitally Integrated Communicator). "Should I consider adding new Digimon to my team first then? I've only been working with Dolce, and as great as she is she runs into trouble. It's that weird Data Vaccine Virus triangle no one can really understand."

"Filling out your team with human teammates can fill that same niche depending on the Digimon they have," The woman said before heaving a sigh, rubbing her hand on her forehead. "Adding a Digimon to your roster besides your first is not something I've been able to convince the other Branches about yet, anyway. I know the West Coast branches are doing it, but they've always been going against code. I'm making a little headway about it with the European branches, but Japan, the Koreas and all of China have been staunchly 'No'. And they weren't even polite about it, the bastards."

"I guess." He said once more, knowing he'd have to give in. "But I don't really KNOW any other members of this branch, let alone other branches. How am I supposed to decide on a team? Do I travel around and see them in action or what?"

"Well," White began, pulling some folders out from one of the stacks of papers on her desk - miraculously without making the stupid thing fall; it was stacked almost up to the ceiling and Liam idly wondered how she did that, "you can get the info on them, I'll allow you to see all their records and you can make some judgment calls there. However, if I make some suggestions...?"

With that, she passed exactly two folders over to him.

"Suggestions are good by me." He said, taking the two. He first chose the one marked with a clear blue bookmark indicating one of the west coast branches. "West Coast eh?"

"Not just West Coast, but one of our longest runners. Been with us since the Agency first started." White said, though she needn't do so. The young man was instantly able to see that the Mr. Rikarde Rittenger that was being suggested was indeed a really long running member of the Agency - since he was sixteen years old. Apparently he was not on call much anymore, his body a little screwed up from injuries sustained in the field, and he was among the West Coast agents that had more than one Digimon - something that was only allowed to happen due to the fact he had so much clout among the Brass and also the Digimon were apparently brothers, twins to be exact. Over all it didn't seem really all that special except for one thing; both of the Digimon were Virus types, and he could Digivolve them both at the same time. Adding onto that surprise, they could even Digivolve all the way up to Ultimate.

"That is impressive. Why isn't he being asked to lead one of these squads himself then?" The young man asked, making a mental note that this likely was one of the best choices.

"As far as I know, he was." White leaned back in her chair, looking thoughtful. Before she suddenly grinned. "I think he reply was, and I quote, 'I want a cushy position if I'm gonna be on the front lines again and being the leader of a bunch of other assholes does not sound cushy to me.' end quote."

"Ah, wonderful. A guy with baggage and hates being leader." The boy scratched his head. "So what about this other person then?" He asked, flipping open the purple marker for Middle America.

"Ah, her." White sucked her teeth. "Honestly I have mixed feelings about her. She's a good agent, she really is... But she's rather insufferable." The young man got the same words from the dossier; a young woman, whose name was Cassi Caine, who had problems with laziness, motivation and authority; she'd have been let go with all the problems she gave if not for the fact she got things done, just on her own terms.

Oh, and the fact she had a shouta angel boy that was as strong as an Ultimate level Digimon while being a Rookie level himself.

"Ah, Lucemon." He said, sighing. "How she managed to tame that Digimon I guess she isn't too eager to say."

"We put power limiters on it." White stated with a small shrug. "It was literally insane with its own power when it Realized, so me and Sampson took it on and brought it down. We couldn't send it back to an Egg, but we did knock it out long enough to put several inhibitors on it. It's been... Manageable ever since. Not docile, but I honestly didn't expect it to be, spitfire that it was. He's relatively tame when it comes to his Tamer, though; we didn't intend for them to become partners by the way. Just brought the girl into the Agency, we were marching him back to the teleporter when we were gonna let her select a tamed Digimon and she latched onto him. I did not know the poor little thing could blush so hard it bruised, but when you're smushed into a strange girl's bosom I imagine it's hard not to." She was snickering by the end of her tirade.

"I... see." The young man agreed. "They certainly are... interesting picks. Is that all you needed me for?"

"Not unless you'd like to do a pole dance for me, Actor Boy." She gave the young man a joking leer.

"No, I'm good." He said, before his DIC began to blink and let off a soft alarm. "That doesn't sound good."

Commander White paused for a moment, listening to the tone of the alarm before throwing herself out of her chair, a serious look on her face. "Realization alert, Code Yellow. Let's go check it out."

"Right." He said, flipping his sunglasses over his eyes once more, holding the door open for the commander as she passed. "Ready for a fight Dolce?" He said, looking down at his DIC. It shook slightly, which seemed to be a good sign as he smiled lightly before following the Commander.

"Alright, what's the damage?" Commander White barked out to the bridge personnel running around the command center when the two entered the room.

"Realization, Commander!" One of the console workers shouted back. "Readings are several Insectoid Rookies of the Virus type!"

"Point of Realization?" White asked, frowning hard as she looked at the huge monitor that displayed a map of New York state. The map zoomed in on the bay connecting New York City and the Bronx. A yellow square appeared and a read-out pointed out the point of realization, a portal between two of the bay bridges. White sucked on her teeth for a moment before stating the obvious, "That is definitely not good."

"A swarm?" The young man noted. "Those are never good. Do they have a clear chain of command?"

"Not that we know of, it could still be on the other side of the-"

The aide's words were drowned out when a louder alarm began to klaxon annoyingly - the yellow lights flashing in the command center burning a deep red now.

"Re-realization... Code Red." He said, looking at the readings with growing alarm. "Several of them are... Combining together to Digivolve to a higher form!"

"Well, that's inconvenient." The young man said, his tone not changing too much in tone in spite of the situation. "Guess we need to get in there quickly eh?"

"I'll be calling in reinforcements." White nodded without looking back at him, merely frowning at the readouts on the huge monitor. "You'll be our first response, though. We're the ones closest to this area. Don't do anything stupid, we don't know what exactly these Digimon are, we could have a bunch of Stingmon or Kuwagamon flying around out there."

"Right right." He said with a wave of his hand.

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><p>As soon as he was out of the room he took off quickly, sprinting out of the building and through the crowded streets towards the bridges (Thankfully due to police enforcing after a few blocks the crowd thinned). When he was stopped by a policeman he quickly flashed his DATS ID, which allowed him to pass. As he reached the bridge, he could see the swarm of Digimon. "Fanbeemon..."<p>

The weird robotic bees - as that was what Fanbeemon were, though some would argue they looked more like brown and yellow flying versions of Wormmon, as they shared the same 'cutesy' looking face, - were currently mounted on different parts of the bridge; chewing away at metal struts and wires, definitely messing with the support of the structure bridge there were so many of them. They bit through steel like it was a soft, delicious confection, munching away at it hungrily. As they were just Realized, they had to eat physical matter in the Real World to stabilize their bodies lest they just fall apart into their own base data; usually that was a source of protein, as most Digimon were organic in some way. Not so for these bees, being mechanical little creatures; things like steel and silicon met their dietary needs more than meat and vegetables.

Which was bad news for the bridge, as it was mostly made of steel and thus made it their first meal in this world. Because there was so many of them, they were doing a definitely high amount of damage already.

"Tch, gotta get them off the bridge first." The young man threw off his white shirt, underneath was a simple white undershirt, but he seemed to be using this as some sort of pose, as he also brought his DIC forth with both hands. "Realize! Dolce!" He shouted, and his Digivice shone with a bright light as a form materialized in front of him. Moments later it threw off its veil of light to reveal a Candlemon, which as the name suggested was a giant white waxen candle on a golden candle stick. Now what set it apart from the mundane item is that it had a mouth, red eyes and arms made of the same material as the rest of its body. Even the flame on its wick had a face; light blue eyes and an oddly stitched mouth.

"Come on now, Liam. When are you going to gain enough experience to keep me in Champion form?" The Candlemon said with a rather bored sounding voice, though with a hint of kindness. "You're at least going to Digivolve me, right?"

"Of course, but first let's get them off the supports shall we?" Liam said, with a small grin.

"Bonfire!" Dolce called out as the flame on top of her head flickered, before splitting and flying off in several directions, which were directed individually by Candlemon. Each one managed to smack into one of the several Fanbeemon chewing on the bridge and knocking them off, their bodies instantly ablaze as they fell from their perches. After that, their companions instantly flew off of theirs, the sky being darkened with their enraged little bodies as they all set their sights down on the ones who dared stir up their hive.

"Yeah this is going to suck." Liam said with a sigh.

"Hurry up then, I'm going to need more power." Dolce responded in her deadpan tone.

"Right you are." Liam said. "But your harsh words wound my poor soul." He placed a hand to his head dramatically, as his hand began to glow green with digital power.

"What a troublesome man." Dolce sighed.

"DNA, Charge!" Liam shouted, slamming his hand onto the top of the DIC. It shone bright with power as once more Dolce became surrounded by light.

"Candlemon, Digivolve too..." The strange ethereal voice seemed to say from inside the light. The candlestick shaped itself into human legs, which were then covered by a tight fitting dress. The tiny waxen arm extended, becoming flesh as they ended in what seemed to be more large claw-like hand. They were then covered by long red gloves that extended up the arm to near the shoulder. The Torso area also became more human, covered by the same red dress as the legs. The flame vanished, replaced by a human head with blonde hair. On her head appeared a Red Witch hat, her feet became covered by black boots, and a black cape became draped around her shoulders. Finally, a small cat made of smoke formed from the air, circling her head. "Witchmon." Came the sound of her name, and once more the light vanished, revealing the now Champion Digimon as she sat on a broom which appeared in her hand.

The Fanbeemon watched this warily, not quite understanding the transformation that suddenly overcame their aggressor, but then a brave few suddenly swooped down after the few moments of wary silence.

"Gear Stinger!" A capella of voices called out, the odd robot bees pointing their abdomens down at Witchmon and shooting their stingers down at her with the sounds of machine-gun fire.

"Aquary Pressure." Witchmon said in that telltale monotone, as jets of water shot up from the river below and smashed into the Fanbeemon as they attempted to attack. As the gear stingers flew towards her, she waved her other hand, muttering "Baluluna Gate" which created a strong slice of wind that smacked all the stingers away. It continued on into the line of Fanbeemon that were behind the ones she shot down with her geysers. The next wave did the most sensible thing after that and the entire hive were practically the ones to go next; all of them just charged down at the two with a perfectly echoed shout of '88 Call!'

It was like watching a group of angry birds all fly down at the same target. Or a swarm of ravenous vespa wasps attacking a poor honey bee hive. Or even platoon of army ants just swooping in to devour everything.

"Baluluna Gate." Witchmon said, the slightest bit of aggravation entering her voice, as she snapped her hands several times, sending out several more waves of air that blasted away the oncoming enemies. It continued for several more seconds, until quite a lot of Fanbeemon now lay on the surface of the bridge.

It seemed like the end then, it really did. The few Fanbeemon left still in the air were hesitating, as if they were actually afraid - which they might have been, as they were Digimon and not the animals they were based on, so they had a greater sense of awareness and intelligence, - but a loud screech made them stop. High above, on the support strut above Witchmon and Liam was the ugliest Robo-bee that ever graced the skies. It had no visible wings, instead having huge jet engines where it might have had shoulders as a humanoid, two comparatively small, thin arms with small hands coming out from under them. Two smaller engines came off of its back, most likely stabilizers of some sort. It had an ugly face taken up mostly by huge, multi-segmented eyes and long metallic antennae. Connected to its shoulders was something that resembled a cross between a cable and a spinal cord, which ended with a thorax that had a huge cannon built into it.

It gave another screech before and with a roar of its shoulder jets, flew off of its perch and into the air, where it brought its thorax cannon to bear.

"Ah." Liam said in his unflappable state. "A Waspmon. Be careful not to get stung."

"Be careful not to get thrown off the bridge." Witchmon responded.

"TURBO STINGER!" It roared out, and the mouth of the thorax cannon flared as it was pointed in Witchmon's direction - before an emerald colored beam of energy shot down and pierced a hole in the area of the bridge she had been standing in moments ago.

"Gear Stinger!" The remaining Fanbeemon joined in, bolstered by their obvious leader's counter attack against their opponent.

"Careful." Dolce said in her deadpan voice, as she managed to push Liam out of the way of part of the oncoming barrages. "Aquary Pressure!" She called, once more summoning a barrage of water which smashed into the Fanbeemon. A singular pillar attack the hit Waspmon as well, but Witchmon seemed more intent on getting their numbers down to keep the fight going until reinforcements arrived.

"I'll scan the data of the fallen Fanbeemon. See if I can't figure out what happened." Liam said, getting back to his feet. "Thanks for the save."

"Hmph." Dolce said in acknowledgement, before rising into the air with her broom to fight the Waspmon.

The Waspmon gave a warning screech as it took aim with its thorax cannon once more, the mouth of it flaring again. "BEAR BUSTER!" It screamed again in its weird voice, sounding a lot like a case of the Legion type vocalization, and a barrage of laser beams began to fly from it to try and strike down the witch flying on her broomstick.

Witchmon angled her broom and flew, dodging the beams to the best of her ability. It seemed luck was on her side, as this Waspmon wasn't a natural evolution (Instead being an amalgam of several Fanbeemon), its control wasn't as precise. The power concentration was high though, and Witchmon quickly decided to end this as fast as she could. "Baluluna gale." She said, slashing out with strikes of wind.

Meanwhile, Liam began to convert several of the fallen Digimon into data where he attempted to reconstruct a series of events, while also storing their insectoid data for possible future use.

The stabilizers on the Waspmon's back flared as it tried to keep upright from the tornado forced gale pushing at it, and it was a rather valiant effort on its part. As it tried to line up another shot to take, however, one of them unexpectedly gave out, sending it twirling away with a screech.

However, it had just been about ready to fire another "TURBO STINGER!" laser and the shot went wide and cut through both the bridge and several of its supports. A distressed groan began to fill the air.

"Crap." Liam said, as the bridge began to buckle.

"Liam!" Docle shouted and sped down, barely grabbing onto him and dragging him safely to the other side.

"How are we supposed to send it back now?" Liam asked.

"Get on the back of my broom. We'll have to manage somehow. I think I injured one of the thrusters, thankfully." Dolce said, before raising them into the air once more.

"Hope White doesn't get pissed at me for this." Liam said with a sigh.

* * *

><p>"I'm going to kill him." Commander White said into her hands as the amount of estimated property damage costs kept on rising.<p>

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><p>The Waspmon flew around almost drunkenly, screeching all the way as it tried to adjust to the fact its stabilizer was on the fritz. One that was cut short as it rammed into a part of the bridge that hadn't been damaged yet.<p>

It pulled away, only to do it again over and over as it tried in vain to control its flight patterns, but it just couldn't adjust with only one stabilizer. So that was how it went for about two minutes, the poor Waspmon just ping-ponging everywhere on the bridge, destroyed and intact parts.

If the duo ever had to admit it later, it was almost amusing watching it continuously fly about and ram into things. That is, until it got tired of it and physically pushed itself away from the latest support strut it ran into and began to pirouette off in the direction of Brox.

"We've got to stop it! Liam called.

"I know that!" Dolce snapped back. She once more grabbed spouts of water from the river, using them to redirect the Waspmon, attempting to keep it from heading into the Bronx and stay at the river area. "I can't create a wall of water to keep it out, but I'll do my best!"

"I KILL YOU!" The Waspmon finally said its first words besides calling its attacks, its voice now a singular effeminate one instead of the Legion it had been. Its cannon was once more beginning to flare as it prepared to attack again, and Liam and Dolce bother grimaced as they prepared for the worst.

A blur suddenly shot by and separated Waspmon from its thorax cannon by the base of the spinal cord, which had the robot bee's balance thrown off even worse, sending it flying back in Witchmon's direction with an actual pained scream.

"Baluluna Gale!" Witchmon said without hesitation, landing another direct blow on the Waspmon. The Waspmon screamed one last time and flashed before suddenly vanishing from sight, being replaced by a single egg that floated serenely in the sky.

"At the end all the various consciousnesses must have merged into one, considering it spoke coherently." Liam said as he scanned the egg, which made it vanish from view and appear on his Digivice. "We'll get it checked out at HQ, make sure it's safe to send back to the digital world. I also have to get chewed out for the bridge. Won't that be fun..."

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><p>"Okay, I know that fighting Digimon can cause a lot of property damage, the same thing happened with me and Sampson and the Chief when we were all starting out. You have no idea how much money went into repairing all the shit we broke. But at the very least we didn't fight on a goddamn BRIDGE!" Commander Harriot White didn't scream, she wasn't the type of woman who did. But she sometimes wished she was, it would let her vent better. As it was, her voice was raised enough to allow the one whom she was berating to understand a smidge of her displeasure. "Didn't you think to take the laser shooting bee robot off farther away from the bridge before it burned away the rest of the supports? We may be funded by every goddamn government in the UN but we are not exempt from having to pay the fines for damages, and bridges cost a lot of money to build, maintain and repair!"<p>

"If I had let it go into the Bronx people would be dead right now." Liam said. "I did my best, but I was alone there. I guess I can see the merit of your team idea right now a lot better than before. At least then they'd be close at hand."

White frowned at him still before sitting back down into her chair with a sigh. "Yeah, you and just about everyone else who still had doubts about it. This is the type of situation I wanted to prevent." A really ugly look marred her face. "Doesn't really help us now though, since the fine for damages are coming from our pockets."

"Sorry." Liam said. "I did try to reconstruct the series of events from Digimon data, but I'm not sure how useful it was. I'm sure the lab already finished examining the resulting egg. Was any of it useful?"

"For the egg, we might be able to turn it into a Tame Digimon. Has the right composite Data to respond to a human's will, oddly enough." White said, folding her hands on her desk again. She still did not look happy in the least. "The Data, sadly, couldn't really tell us why the Digimon came to the Real World in the first place, or why they were so ornery. Only that like the last few Realizations of the really angry ones, something is forcing them to come over here."

"Damn. A lot of data got lost when the bridge fell too. I was hoping we'd finally have something to go on." He sighed.

"At least this gave me an excuse to stay out of the DIC for a while. I've wanted to stretch my legs for ages." Dolce said in a return to her usual monotone.

Liam glanced at her curiously. She was sitting firmly upon her broom. "Right..."

"It can't be helped, really." White shrugged finally. "I should be glad you ended it when you did. I take it someone else finally managed to come and assist at the end? Considering there are no dead people or melted buildings in the Bronx."

"Well Dolce re-angled it towards the bridge, but yeah someone else came in and helped. After that hit the Waspmon was all but done so we finished up and scanned the egg."

"I see. Did you see who it is?" White asked, frowning slightly. "Because no one else reported in that they'd come in to assist."

"Now that you mention it, no I didn't." Liam said. "And here I thought they'd want to take all the credit. Then again, we did lose a bridge..."

"Nice job on that, by the way." A new voice entered the conversation, causing everyone in the room to turn toward the door. It had opened to reveal a man in a dark suit, dark glasses and dark hair. He had a rather smug look on his face, though that could have just been his default expression (at least judging from the look on Commander White's face, it probably was). "The Government really _needed_ an excuse to spend millions more tax payer dollars on something. Really. All the wild coke parties were starting to get a little dull, they _really_ were."

"What do you want, Bollock." White growled out at the man, a marked tone from how she usually sounded around Liam.

"Just to meet the saviors of the day, of course!" The man had a particularly feces devouring grin as well. "After all, it's you lot that let's us all sleep safe at night when extra dimensional super powered alien animals want to come munch on us. Thought it'd be nice to speak with the fine gentleman you've taken on as a protégé."

"I'm only one of the many employees, sir." Liam said with a pleasant smile. He seemed oddly used to these kinds of people, though perhaps he'd had the misfortune of meeting these people before in his acting work.

"Were you the one at the bridge then?" Dolce asked in her deadpan voice, knowing she wasn't allowed to hit someone just for being annoying.

"Me? No, sorry, I don't have one of you guys on my pay roll." The man shook his head, holding up his badge. "Sadly I'm just the usual Government Worker. I'm a liaison between you fine protectors of humanity and the White House. I do say, I think it would be awesome to have one of you super powered aliens working for us. Especially a fine young lady like yourself," He seemed to be checking out the Witchmon, though with his dark glasses they couldn't really tell (from the look on White's face however, she was most likely assuming).

"Can I-"

"No." Liam cut Dolce off with a pleasant smile still firmly in place. "But we will step aside if you and Commander White have important business to be discussing?"

"If you would please," The man nodded slightly. "Considering what went down today, I need to have a talk with your Commander for a little while."

"Fine," White growled, before tossing Liam some more dossiers. "Look over those, see if you like them better than the first two I had you look at."

"Right. Can I get my DIC back at the lab before heading out, or did you need to keep it?" Liam asked, looking at the small pile of dossiers.

"Yeah, just go and get it. If the lab guys want anything else from it they can get it the next time you bring it in." White dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

"Right." Liam said, before leaving the room.

* * *

><p>The DATS agent didn't leave headquarters immediately. He still had his Digivice to pick up, after all. He had headed downstairs, to the science division's wing. He passed by several doors before finding the lab he was looking for. "Mordin!" He called, after pressing a button on the wall mounted speaker phone. "It safe to come in?"<p>

"One second!" There was a commotion in the lab, with various people yelling, the sound of a very unhappy T-rex, a tumultuous cacophony of cascading falling cans, an explosion and a giant rooster freaking the hell out. Not all in that order.

After the sounds ceased, there was a few tense seconds of silence.

"Well he did say one second." Liam said with a shrug at Dolce, before opening the door.

It looked like a war zone, bottles and cans and lab equipment thrown everywhere like a hurricane hit the place. A lot of it was broken, with mysterious substances everywhere. A lot of computers had met their ends, too, having been viciously set on fire or stepped on.

The good doctor was inspecting a fallen Greymon, who was currently tranqed to hell and passed out onto the floor in the middle of the lab, tongue lolling out of its mouth as it drooled everywhere. Only the bravest of the man's aides were with him, the rest all scattered about and... Trying to look busy.

"Unfortunate. Greymon not responding to human emotions like planned. Might have to return him to egg again." The man sighed almost sadly. "So much wasted effort."

"Must be hard on you." Liam said sympathetically, knowing better then to question the good doctor. "Just came to pick up my DIC. I realize you may not have been able to separate the egg from it yet, but I need it for the trip I'm about to go on. Who knows? Maybe I'll figure out how to tame the bee."

"Would have liked to try and get egg out." The man nodded, though again he seemed sad and reluctant as he parted with the item in question. "Would have made fine test subject. Even egg is responding to people better than Greymon. Keep having to put restraints on him. Probably become partner to new agent, too. Greymon... Not so lucky, from looks of it."

"Indeed. Well good luck man." Liam said, before turning to leave the lab. Well, he at least spotted the source of the chicken noise now; some poor aid was being accosted by a man sized rooster in a corner of the lab. "You might want to save your assistant there. He's being attacked by a chicken."

"Yes, yes, Kokatorimon always been rather emotional. Will take care of that, Greymon out of it for now anyway." Dr. Mordin gave a sigh, before heading off to rescue his poor assistant from being assaulted by a cranky, agitated chicken monster.

* * *

><p>"So Dolce, what should we do with the egg?" Liam asked as they made their way to his practice. They got looks from the passersby, but the people of New York had learned to deal with the sights of odd floating people or giant monsters walking by the Agents of DATS. Commander Harriot White had known there would be no way to control how much information about Digimon getting out, so all the American branches allowed the populace to know that their Digimon partners were there to stay, and weren't at all dangerous; they were protectors and friends, no matter how ugly or evil they looked. It was the ones who appeared without people chaperoning them and blowing up the hell out of everything around them that they'd been told to <em>and<em> learned to run away screaming from.

"Kill it. Preferably with fire." She answered immediately.

"Now that's not nice at all."

"You're my Tamer. It's not like you require further assistance."

"It's not like that bridge which totally didn't fall because it was only you and me today."

Dolce said nothing in return, just icy silence.

"Come on, you're not honestly telling me we had control in that situation?"

"And you think you can control the egg of that thing?"

"Well, since its now an entirely different Digimon than before since all those minds became one, probably."

"So, what do we do?"

"We go home, inject it with insectoid data, hatch it, and hope for the best."

The Witchmon gave him a _look_.

"What? It's true! Even if we fail we leave on a plane tomorrow so no big deal, am I right?"

Dolce remained silent. It seemed that was the best way she could externalize her displeasure.

* * *

><p>Liam sighed as he sat down on his couch. It had been a long day, and the news reports were all zeroed in on the loss of the bridge. They briefly touched upon the battle DATS had with the Digimon, a short clip being shown of him and Witchmon flying through the air dodging the Waspmon attacks making Dolce fairly happy, since she tugged her hat down to hide her face.<p>

After that the news focused in on when repairs would begin, and how commuters should handle their daily route to their work in the meantime. Liam placed the DIC on the table, before clicking a button. "Realize." He said softly, and the small egg materialized from inside the Digivice.

"Are you really sure about this?" Witchmon asked, plopping down on the couch next to him.

"Never going to know unless we try, right?" He said, before clicking another button. "Begin insectoid data injection." The DIC beeped, before beginning the process. He knew this would take a little time. "Dinner?"

"Is it a date?" Dolce responded with the smallest hint of a playful smile.

"You know that's not what I meant." He said with a sigh. "I meant I'm getting food."

"Of course." She said, slumping into the couch. She was clearly enjoying being in her champion form. "So? Have you gotten a handle on it yet?"

"Not quite." Liam answered. "I'd say my DigiSoul will run dry pretty soon. I'm just not used to the drain of the network the way some others are."

"I can't imagine that Lucemon girl's network. Or that boy with two Digimon at once. It must take amazing amounts of Soul."

"They likely trained hard for it. Or have a natural gift. Either way." Liam said with a shrug, returning with some bread, salami, and condiments. "Put whatever you want on it."

"Right." Dolce said with a sigh. Her tamer had no flair for the fancy. Which was odd considering his profession.

* * *

><p>The DIC let off a small beep, which meant the injection process was complete. Liam leaned forward, and pressed a final button. The egg shone before cracks began to appear, slowly but steadily, until the egg burst open.<p>

"It didn't fail did it?" Dolce asked, as the egg data shattered and vanished.

"No, it seems to have worked just fine." Liam said, as a small winged creature formed from the residual data. The small yellow creature had a strange crooked grin, and its wings flapped desperately to keep it in the air. It hovered slowly over to them, before plopping contentedly onto Liam's head and making a soft buzzing sound.

"Hmph. I suppose it's welcome to the team then, Puroromon." Dolce said in a rather foul tone, taking a bite of her sandwich.

* * *

><p>In a secret lab that should have been abandoned but had merely been written off as such, someone else was watching the news about the Digimon attack on the bridge. Multiple experiments of dubious nature were going on around him, all of them in stages where he could let them run with minimal interference for the time being, so he let his attention go to the multitude of TV screens that were showing news from around the country. After getting bored with the New York news, he looked over at the multiple screens showing off various news shows from the various West Coast regions. A sinister smile couldn't help crossing his face, smugness and vile intent in his heart.<p>

He pushed up his spectacles when they slid down his nose. "Soon." He grinned to himself.

* * *

><p><strong>After note: In reality, the idea of a giant jet powered robot bee with a thorax cannon fighting a magical girl on a flying broomstick with the ability to control both wind and water would be ridiculous as well as sort of kind of very terrifying if it were happening in front of you. But, yanno, Digimon for ya. It can make ridiculous things like this happen more often than not, and that's pretty much why I love it.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><span><strong>Chapter 2: Wreckin' Ball<strong>

* * *

><p>The plane ride hadn't been an interesting one. Thankfully his DIC was disguised to look like a cell phone so he was able to avoid any awkward questions about it. Just because DATS was a well recognized organization didn't mean Liam wanted the attention. Using a headset connected to the DIC, most of his plane ride was spent listening to Dolce half-heartedly complain about their new companion, who seemed to have taken a shine to her. It took a large amount of DigiSoul, but Liam had kept her in Champion form for the time being, and she had become the not entirely reluctant raiser of the tiny bee Digimon.<p>

Once he arrived, he had taken a taxi to the nearest hotel, before picking up the phone and making a quick call. "Yes, this is Liam. From the New York branch. What, ID number? Ah crap, I know I put that somewhere..." He fumbled around on his desk for a moment before pulling out a very distinct license. "It's 591325. Good enough for ya? I'm here regarding Commander White's project."

The voice on the other end of the line paused for a moment before they gave a disinterested 'oh, _that_' before telling him that the Director of the Illinois Branch, a Commander Orson Peabody, would be able to see him that afternoon at the earliest, as he was very busy with the day to day running of operations.

Liam knew that wasn't entirely true as this county didn't see much action besides a Realization in one of the neighboring ones. Really, who were they trying to fool?

"Alright, I'll be there." Liam said before hanging up. He let out a small sigh as Puroromon flopped about on the bed, flapping its wings to bring itself back into the air before flopping onto the bed again. Dolce was flopped on the other bed, completely exhausted from keeping a hold of the little bugger throughout the plane flight. "We'll be able to see them this afternoon, it seems."

"Enough time to catch a nap." Dolce replied, before pulling her hat over her face and falling asleep.

* * *

><p>Commander Peabody was an odd looking man. He was balding, what hair crowning his head white. He had a fat face lined with laugh lines, but his body was almost rail thin. He had heterochroma - his eyes were mismatched in color, both being green but one being partly yellow in the corner of the iris. He wore a frumpy Commander's coat, green in color, with dark burgundy shoulders.<p>

And right now he was frowning at Liam, hands folded on his desk - mahogany, a similarity in tastes with Liam's own commander. "So, you wanted this meeting, Agent. What is it you need?"

Liam put down the list of dossiers given to him on the table. "I've been told to form an experimental squad. One of the people I was told to see if I could recruit was a girl by the name of Cassi Caine. Apparently she tamed a Lucemon."

"Oh. Her." Peabody sighed and ran a hand over his balding dome. "Honestly I don't know why you'd want her. She's very difficult to work with; literally she will not work with anyone despite how much we ask. And forcing won't help either; she'll just shut down completely. I mean I guess I could just hand her over and say 'Good luck with that!' but at the same time, when she does work she does it damn well."

"I'm only supposed to try commander. Truth be told even Commander White seemed doubtful about this project bearing fruit." Liam said, scratching his head. "If I can meet with her, at least then I can get a straight yes or no."

"Hah!" The man let out a seemingly uncharacteristic laugh. "Yeah, I think that fits better here; good luck with that. Girl never gives a straight answer even on the paperwork she turns in! It's mostly just doodles of inappropriate subjects. Turned into cats. Or foxes."

"Wonderful." Liam responded, quite sure his chances of succeeding here had taken a nosedive the negative percentage. "So where can I find her?"

"Usually shut in some where." The commander waved a hand. "Might be better to find her partner, he's always flying about somewhere, can't stand being cooped up. You'll probably have an easier time talking with him!"

Liam sighed before bowing and leaving the room. He was beginning to wonder how taking this break was going to benefit him. Sure, the pay from DATS was well worth it, but it seemed like these dossiers might be worth less than promised. "So, finding a Lucemon, eh?"

* * *

><p>It was an interesting prospect, to be sure. After all, when one was looking for something that could fly, one would suspect that it would be hard to find them.<p>

What Liam did not expect was to find the Lucemon off in a park that he had just happened to take his two partners to for a late lunch and early diner, which he liked to call 'linner'. Or 'lunner'. Either worked.

He was lounging while levitating, getting some sun while he wore sunglasses over his eyes. He certainly looked relaxed, hands behind his head and legs folded as if he had set them on a coffee table. He also wore different clothes than normal Lucemon did, not favoring a toga in this cold weather but a shirt with flowing pants, of course colored white. He also wore shoes, also atypical for his species, but that again was because of the cold weather.

"Well, that's probably the Lucemon." Liam said with a shrug.

"You're certainly blasé about this." Dolce responded in her deadpan voice.

"Eh?" The Lucemon looked over at them for a moment before giving a yawn. "Ah, man. Thought no one was going to come by." People just kept on interrupting him when he was trying to get some relaxation away from his partner. "Ah well. Leave you to it." With that he levitated upright and seemed about to fly away.

"Hang on a mo." Liam said rising a hand. "We're from the New York branch. I got sent to speak to your tamer. Unless you happen to be wild, in which case my apologies on that presumption."

"Eh?" He looked at them, taking his sunglasses off to squint at them freely. Like all Lucemon, his eyes were a brilliant blue. "Now why would a wild Lucemon be running around relaxing instead of blowing up the shit out of things? We're not the most stable species, I'll admit." He took on a serious expression. "Now what do you need from my partner, New Yorker?"

"Just to ask her a question about a proposition put forth by the commander of the branch." Liam said. "She's fully within her rights to refuse and such, just figured I'd better at least ask."

"I can tell you right now she'd refuse." Lucemon huffed, crossing his arms. "I'm starting to wonder why she even took me on as her partner if she's going to just sit on her ass all day looking at pictures of cute puppies. She's wasting my potential and hers!"

"At least let me hear that from her herself." Liam said with a smile. "Otherwise the refusal isn't official and I'll have to come back again."

"Yeah, right, because _bureaucracy_." The angel boy said with a mocking tone, waving his arms about meaningfully. "Honestly, I don't know how you humans got to be the dominant species on this planet when you're so fond of laying that red tape around everywhere. Everything is so much simpler where I come from; if someone is too lazy to pull their own weight, you blow them the hell up. If they're too nosy for their own good, you blow them the hell up. If they have a stupid face, you blow them the hell up. _Much_ simpler."

Lucemon sighed before motioning to Liam. "Follow me then, if you need to make it official. Just warning you, she'll probably just tell you flat out 'No'. If she doesn't force you to drag it out of her."

"Alrighty." Liam said, choosing to ignore the little rant the Digimon had gone on for no real discernible reason.

They arrived at the woman's place of dwelling a little before sunset, and the Lucemon just barged into the house without concern for locks or doors. In fact he ripped the stupid thing right out of the wall. He merely glanced at the object disdainfully as if the barrier were nothing more than a nuisance.

"Cas, I'm back!" He called out. There was an odd 'nyeh' sound that came deeper from inside the house.

"Already? I thought you'd be gone all day again! And did you break the door again? You're letting all the cool air in!"

"Realize." Liam said, as Witchmon materialized. "Sorry, but can you put the door back?"

"Not a problem. Maybe." Dolce said, trying to asses the damage. This was likely out of her control, but at this point she couldn't make it any worse.

"Are you talking to yourself again? Why does your voice sound-" The young woman came into the room and instantly let out a loud sound of distress when she saw her partner wasn't alone. The reason for such was that she currently wasn't wearing much, if anything at all. Unfortunately (for her) they were all looking directly at her. "OH GOD!"

"What the _hell_ are you doing?! Get some clothes on!" The angel boy roared, not even blushing at his Tamer's state of undress; as if this were a common occurrence. His eyebrow was merely twitching in annoyance.

Dolce very conveniently swung the door that very same moment into Liam's face, which seemed to perhaps leave him dead on the floor, before smashing the back into the frame, which somehow stuck in place.

The girl raced off to her room not a second after that, and the Lucemon looked back at the guests - perhaps to apologize for scarring them for life, but he couldn't help snarking as soon as he saw the poor boy on the floor with a door imprint on his face, "You do that often or only when other women are involved?"

"Tch, he's lucky it was just a door." Dolce said with a small amount of irritation. Liam's DIC let off a beeping sound, before Puroromon realized itself, flopping uselessly onto Dolce's hat in a contented state, buzzing softly. Dolce sighed. "And you need to learn to stay in the DIC if you don't want to get in trouble."

* * *

><p>"Oi!" A voice cut through Liam's unconsciousness as something semi-roughly slapped him in the face. It was a distinctly human-like hand that had distinctly inhuman strength behind it. "You going to be out all night or what, bucko?"<p>

Liam blinked once or twice, before finding himself awake on the floor of the strange girl's building. "Dolce, why the hell did you slam the door in my face?"

"Reasons."

The girl's Lucemon was leaning down beside him, hand poised to smack him again. "Yeah, and you've been out about an hour and a half." He said, hovering back into the air - as per usual for him. "That little girl of yours was making a nest in your coat."

"I have no idea what that even means." Liam said, standing up, a tad unsteadily. "Is your partner ready to see us now? It's been an hour and a half, by your own estimation."

"That little girl." Lucemon waved emphatically at Liam's coat. Puroromon poked her head out of the collar of it, right next to the young man's face. "And yeah, she's been ready. Shoulda seen it, she and Dolce had a cat fight when my partner hinted she wanted to do naughty things to you in your sleep." The look on the angel boy's face held no amusement what so ever, despite describing what had probably been an amusing situation.

"Your partner seems to be an odd one." Liam said with a sigh, before patting Puroromon gently on the head. "Let's get this over with shall we?"

"Yeah, let's get it done." Lucemon sighed as well, before levitating off into what presumably was the living room. Liam and crew followed.

It wasn't a bad looking room. There were a few chairs lining the walls of the room, as well as a couple sofas opposite of them. There was a closet and a couple bookcases that contained DVDs, one of which seemed to be devoted to quite a library of animes. The TV, on the left side of the room against the wall, was on, a news channel displaying current events for the day.

"Glad to see you up, Mr. Sleepy Head." The girl spoke up. She was sitting on one of the sofas, and thankfully she was fully dressed this time. She wore a purple tank top that matched a collar of the same color around her neck, which had a little jingling bell attached to it. The color also matched the dark violet hair on her head. Glasses sat on her nose, gray eyes peeking out from them almost playfully. She also wore a pair of black jeans, and finally some violet rimmed sneakers on her feet. "I was getting a little worried~"

"Yeah well, I don't usually take a door to the face." Liam said rubbing his nose.

Behind him, Dolce hid her face by pulling down her large hat, though one eye continued to glare at the girl on the couch.

"At any rate, I assume Lucemon managed to tell you a bit about why we're here." The young man continued.

"Yeah, Azzy told me exactly why you'd want little ol' me, and honestly I'm flattered that out of every other DATS agent you could have chosen you went and thought I'd be perfect for your merry band of lawgivers," The girl began, smiling playfully, "I'm also honestly not sure what made you decide I would be. I mean, you've no doubt heard all the horror stories about how much of a 'bluh bluh huge pain' everyone else thinks me as, so I can only assume you want me for my babu." The Lucemon had hovered over to her side as she spoke, and she reached up and effortlessly plucked him from the air and sat him on her lap like a small child. He gave a glower and a tiny blush, but did nothing else - even when she planted her chin on the top of his head and wrapped her arms around him.

"Not gonna lie, that seems to be the only thing mentioned in your dossier." Liam said. "I'm not super stoked on this team idea myself, but Commander White was insistent and you were one of the two she said were 'highly recommended.' As you guessed, that's likely because of Lucemon and not you."

"I thought so." The young lady sighed, nuzzling her chin into her partner's head. "Glad you're so honest with me, the rest of these assholes in this branch aren't. I _hate_ bureaucracy, man. Though to be honest with you, I don't like the idea of being on a team. It's more obligation than I'd like, and I really don't like the idea of being in more danger than I usually am." She shivered slightly. "I've heard the stories of all the best agents; they get their bodies so torn up in the line of duty just driving back Digimon that they can hardly function normally. Even some of the Commanders aren't exempt from that; I know mine was far more active until an unfortunate incident with some Assaultmon..."

"Too true." Liam said, scratching his head. "Commander White still hasn't told me why I was really chosen. I can only assume I was contracted in some way. You on the other hand, are fully free to refuse."

"Yeah, and I really want to, I really do." The young woman sighed again, cuddling her partner closer. The poor Lucemon had the picture perfect expression of a defeated animal. "... But I think that might just get me in trouble. Again."

"It shouldn't. Only thing in the package is a huge pay raise for participants. Downside seems to be travel and being on call almost 24/7. That's not going to be fun." Liam said. "Besides, I get the feeling Lucemon's way too valuable for them to have you leave DATS."

"Wait." The girl looked a little cross-eyed at the mention of a 'Huge pay raise'. "How much are we talking here? Because if that pay raise is big enough I think that _might_ outweigh all the cons."

"Well, enough to pull me from Broadway." Liam said with a shrug. "I wasn't making the _big_ bucks there, but the amount they're giving is making me less angry at them for doing it." Liam said. "I think the amount is dependent on our performance, but at the start likely twice what you're making now at the very least."

"I see." The girl looked away thoughtfully, playing with the head-wings on her partner's head. The look of defeat on his face morphed at her next words, "Okay, I'm in then."

Liam blinked for a moment. "Wait seriously? You're not one of those money grabbers right? Those people are hard enough to deal with without Digimon being involved."

The woman looked downright, positively offended. "Money grub- NO!" She stood up, squeezing her little Lucemon to her tightly. The poor boy began to gag. "I am not one of those money grubbing little gold diggers! It's just what I'm being paid now isn't really all that much and because of how the economy is right now, I have to live with my parents and they won't stop nagging me and giving me no respect! I just want enough money to start living on my own without having to deal with them!"

"Ah. Respectable enough. Didn't mean to pry there." Liam said, raising a hand to stop her rampage. "That's one member for the team. I've been told to get at least one more, which means I'll be continuing the Dossier reports. One last thing. Lucemon is your only partner, right?"

"He's the only one I've needed." The girl huffed as sat down, looking rather cross with the man in front of her. She also finally let up on the pressure, letting Lucemon breathe again. The poor Digimon was gasping in air greedily. "I mean, I _could_ have gotten more, but my boy is so strong I haven't needed anyone else. He can handle Rookies and high end Champions like a pro."

Liam nodded. "Then pack your bags. We're headed for California."

"Oh. Okay." The girl sighed, poking her Lucemon's cheek. "We're gonna melt, Azzy."

"You will. I'm going to pack my toga." Azrael the Lucemon rolled his eyes.

* * *

><p>Liam was glad he had gotten used to sleeping on planes by now. If he hadn't slept, he'd have had to deal with Dolce, who was trying to demand a realization (in the middle of a crowded plane no less) so she could try and smack the girl who was sleeping with Lucemon clutched in her arms. Lucemon was quite successfully passing himself off as a stuffed doll, claiming it to be one of his amazing abilities he had perfected over the years of living with his partner.<p>

Puroromon was starting to get more used to flying, though it still seemed to enjoy flopping onto Dolce's head quite randomly which she endured for the sake of the young impressionable Digimon.

"So. You said that I was only one acquisition to the team." The girl, whom we all know to be named Cassi because, c'mon, it was mentioned in this chapter already, "Who is the other asshole we're going to have in our merry band of idiots?"

"A guy who's managed to handle two Digimon at once to decent effect already, assuming he says yes." Liam said with his eyes still closed. "Now they surmise the partnership works because the two Digimon are actually brothers, but no one can be entirely sure. Either way, the guy's got plenty of DigiSoul to back them up with."

"Wait," Cassi looked a little confused. "Digimon can have family? I thought that they didn't have things like sex and genders and..." Her face immediately soured and she gave her partner a harsh tug on his head wing. "You cheeky little liar!"

"I wasn't lying!" Azrael hissed back, his disguise almost ruined just from that painful tug. "We don't, just that more than one Digimon can be born from an egg sometimes! It's about as common as you humans having more than one kid at a time!"

"It's a subject of debate, especially lately." Liam said, opening one eye lazily. "Mordin has a theory that Digimon are slowly evolving to become more like humans. That's why many champion through mega forms become more humanoid in several Digimon. Of course, that isn't always the case. Some become more beastly or demonic. But Mordin's theory does account for that. I never sat down to listen to the whole thing. Guy likes to talk in clipped sentences that make it hard to understand."

"That's really weird." Cassi thought for a moment, before she poked her partner's cheek. "So where does Azrael fit in? He's a Rookie, but he's really human-like. I don't know down to what detail, 'cause he doesn't like to be seen naked-"

"Unlike you, I don't have a fetish for being nude when I'm alone." The Lucemon hissed again.

"Mordin believed Lucemon is from the newer generation of Digimon, ones that have approached very close to humanity. It is likely that Lucemon's descendants could become essentially human themselves. I think the reason the Digital World became so interlinked with ours was because the Digital World 'sought evolution.'" Liam said, trying to remember the clipped tone of the scientist. "This evolution has occurred over time. Before now there have been several cases of children entering the digital world or Digimon crossing over into ours. It wasn't until more recently that the portals were established and DATS founded. That'd be what, ten years ago now?"

The girl made an interested sound, looking down at her partner with squinted eyes. "... So then, how do you think baby Digimon are made, then?"

"That hasn't changed." Azrael interrupted the question. It was honestly awkward for him to hear it. "We still mostly get them from Villages where defeated Digimon are reborn when they're Deleted. Their eggs usually fly there."

"Mostly?" Cassi questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Her partner's eyes twitched and he tried not to glare. "_Mostly_."

"If you scan the data, the DigiEggs can appear inside the DIC instead." Liam said, waving the girl off. "That accounts for 100%. For now. Mordin believes that will change soon or may already have. But no one knows for sure."

"I'm not going to stop questioning you later, little liar." Cassi tapped her partner on the head. She turned her attention to Liam. "So, we know our third guy is supposed to be in Cali, right? Do you know _where_ in Cali he's stationed?"

"San Francisco." Liam said. "It's like New York only smaller. And worse. And no Broadway. So inferior in every way."

"I see." She bit her lip slightly, rocking her and her partner in her seat. "... Think they might have any beaches nearby?"

"They have piers, but no beaches directly." Liam said. "It's illegal to nude on the beach, by the way."

"Aw." She pouted. "Spoil my fun."

"You don't tan all that easily, anyway." Azrael cut in again, earning him a bop. "You'd burn everything and be shedding for weeks. Even in the more unpleasant bits." He earned another bop.

"We'll be there soon." Liam said. "Guy will likely be waiting in a conference room. You can go shopping or come along, either or."

Cassi began a slow, low laugh that soon grew into quite loud, maniacal proportions, which made everyone currently sitting around them uncomfortable.

Azrael, having lived with this woman for quite a few years and had picked quite a few things up, merely looked at Liam like he was an idiot. "You never tell a woman they can go shopping." He ground out. "_Ever_."

"Not my problem. Or money." Liam said with a smirk. "Just know that if you waste all your money you won't be getting an advance. I don't handle the money anyway."

* * *

><p>As soon as the group left the plane, however, they were met by the one would eventually be their third party member.<p>

He was waiting outside the airport proper, a huge green insect man next to him holding signs with their names. The man grinned at their shocked expressions. "Sup."

* * *

><p>A great green serpent swam into San Francisco bay, having left behind a group of likeminded fellows that were hoping beyond hope that he was right and he could make his plan work. They didn't want to be here, and they most certainly didn't want to hurt anyone else. They were done doing what that bastard wanted.<p>

They had been sent as the vanguard, but that only gave him a chance to try and help the other side. It was his and his boys' hope they believed him.

With that thought in his mind, he rose up out of the water next to a ferry boat that was going through the strangely uninhabited waters. Water splashed down onto the deck unintentionally, making him wince. But he pressed on.

"Hello, you lot." He spoke. "Can you uh, take me to someone I can talk to? I've some things I need to tell to people in power."

After his words, the shell-shocked crowd on the deck began to scream and panic.

He winced once more. "No, uh, seriously. I ain't gonna hurt any a' ya. I've just like to-"

The people continued to panic and scream.

"Please calm down you lot, I already told ya I've not gonna-"

The screaming was becoming obnoxious.

"No seriously-"

Someone threw their suit case at him to try and make him leave. It just bounced off of his mask, spraying out the luggage everywhere.

"Who does that?" He went cross-eyed, staring at the lacy underwear that was sitting on his nose.

The people continued to scream as he was pelted with their worldly belongings.

"Argh." Welp. He was hoping this wouldn't be the reaction all humans had to his presence. Was that too much to hope for? If so, he had made a horrible mistake in choosing to try his gambit now.

* * *

><p><strong>After Note: As someone asked in the reviews last week, I will be taking in OC submissions to help fill out other branches. If you'd like to submit an OC or two (or more) just send me a PM. I'll tell you the rules to doing so. Though I will say right now, do not expect them to be main characters. I already have those decided for the most part.<strong>

**Also just so everyone knows, this will have a weekly updating schedule if I can help it. It's what I aim for. But just don't be surprised if I end up missing, due to real life obligations.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong>Chapter 3: Prison Talk<strong>

* * *

><p>"I'm supposing DATS members here are more flamboyant than back home." Liam said, sighing as several passerby's seemed not to take note of the bugman and continue walking. "You must be..."<p>

"Rikarde Rittenger, at your service." He bowed - or at least he would if he didn't wince slightly after leaning over a certain amount and go back to standing up straight. He wore a dark over coat, almost like that of a DATS Commander rank, his uniform underneath being a navy blue. He wore a fur hat on his head, and in his hands, which were clasped together, was a nicely carved wooden cane. "Heard you two were on the way from both Peabody and White. Decided I'd come pick you kids up so we could chat."

"Sure that's wise?" Liam asked. "You appear to be injured."

"Old wounds." Rikarde shrugged. "Nothing much I can do about them, they only act up whenever there's a biiiig Bio-Emergence about to happen."

"I think I'm beginning to see the reason why you're actually here." Azrael finally spoke up. If no one else was reacting to the huge bugman then he figured no one would be anymore weirded out by an angel talking. Several people immediately jumped away, startled over the 'large stuffed toy' speaking. Of course.

"Guilty as charged, my own Commander pretty much wanted you guys at HQ ASAP." The man smiled.

"Right then, lead the way." Liam said. Chatter was useless at this point.

Rikarde nodded and waved an arm. A limo pulled up beside the curb behind him, the bugman glowed and reverted to a more manageable form and the entire group went inside the expensive transportation. A yellow and blue worm-like creature joined the green and purple one that the bugman had become on Rikarde's shoulder.

"If I drank, I'd be more excited about that mini-bar." Cassi eyed the assorted expensive drinks on the rack inside the long car ruefully.

Rikarde laughed. "Heaviest stuff I've ever touched is a Mike's myself." Then he went entirely serious, looking at the other Tamers grimly. "So. How big a' Realizations either of you ever dealt with?"

"Nothing Azrael couldn't handle." Cassi replied, preening for her partner. She was playing with his head wings again. "My babu is strong and doesn't afraid of anything."

"Recently I dealt with the Fanbeemon swarm on the bridge in New York. That probably made headlines. That was the hardest solo fight I've had, though I got some help to subjugate the Waspmon in the end." Liam reported. "Other than that, I can't say New York has dealt with the biggest threats, but generally on a par level to normal branches."

"Hah! And it's usually New York in all those action movies that gets hit with disasters and huge monsters rising up from the deep!" Despite his humorous tone, he did not look pleased. "... Things are a lot rougher here. I'm sure ya'll heard it on the news, but people are abandoning San Fran. We got a literal army on our shores. And they ain't like typical Realizations."

"I've heard worrying stories about the pacific ocean." Liam said. "Problem is unless you see it yourself, it's news that doesn't seem to have spread well."

"Yeah, we got a real problem. There's an active portal in what people think might be the Bermuda Triangle. Let's just say it's making things really difficult on us over here." Rikarde sighed. "Island states and countries that are really small, like Hawaii, had to be abandoned completely. Ebidramon and Seadramon had far too easy a time invading since there was so little land there. Hell, it's making coastal cities around the world pretty much the only cities that have Branches, and the branches that aren't coastal are pretty much on call to come help us in the case things get really dicey. We have no idea why they're targeting the west coast but we think they may just be trying to bring less attention to the portal over there near Florida. Which leads to the worst thing about this entire mess." He leaned toward the other Tamers, his eyes narrowed. "These jerks aren't the brain dead little morons you get with normal Realizations. They're an army. And we're pretty sure their leader is here in the Real World."

"No wonder communications have been so strained." Liam put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Meanwhile the the New York and Jersey areas has been unusually quiet on the sea front, as well as the rest of the east coast, you're right about that. But I've got to warn you, I'm not sure we're equipped for water combat. Dolce can only fly in her champion form, and I don't have any other Digimon." His DIC chose that moment to beep and out came Puroromon once more. She flopped over onto the seat next to him and began to buzz. "Well, any combat ready Digimon."

"Cute kid." The Kunemon on Rikarde's shoulder spoke up.

"Yeah, that would be a problem, if we weren't sure they were going to make a final charge against us." Rikarde leaned back. "There's been a huge gathering of signals ten miles out to sea and a reading that might be the beginnings of a portal. We think they're opening up a portal to lead the rest of their army directly here so they can take us out and then head on march on the rest of Cali."

"They have any sort of plan to close the portal? The Commander isn't going to come forth if he can just keep calling in the cavalry." Liam said.

"They have one, yeah. But it'd kind of ruin the environment." Rikarde looked off uncomfortably to the side. "They plan to drop a nuke in the ocean as soon as the portal's open. 'They' meaning the United States Government."

"That's a bad idea." Cassi finally spoke up, her brow furrowing.

"That's a _terrible_ idea." Liam grimaced. "That wouldn't even come close to destroying the portal. Basic reports from DATS would tell them that much. All they'd do is destroy data that'll reconstruct in a matter of hours."

"Yeah, but you know how other branches of governmental workers are toward their fellows. Obstructive, untrustful and do not like listening or sharing data. And that's even if the nuke manages to make it to the portal, a Digimon could destroy the bomb before it explodes." Rikarde snorted, almost angrily. "And we all know a broken bomb can't be set off. All they'd do is waste money, resources _and lives_ with this stunt, but do they listen? Of course not." He turned his head and spat, staining a piece of fine carpet. "I _hate_ bureaucracy."

"And yet here I am to ask you something set about by those same processes." Liam said. "I can guess your response, but I'll assume that's best saved until we figure out what to do about these Digimon?"

"Yeah, my response would be 'Let's wait and see if we live to see tomorrow, if you'd please,'" Rikarde gave a grim smile. "But I think my actual answer would be a surprise, considering you got the Lucemon Girl here with you."

"Hey, I resemble that." Cassi interrupted.

"Good, because I was talking about you." Rikarde retorted.

"Is there someone leading an attack force in the water?" Liam asked. "Just because they'll be coming to us doesn't mean we shouldn't put up a front."

"Nothing official yet, though my Commander has an Aegisdramon for a partner. We're hoping that'll be enough, because out there is the leader of the entire goddamn invading army." Rikarde looked intensely at the other Tamer. "The God Priest of the Dark Ocean, Dagomon."

"Aegisdramon, huh... That's probably not good enough." Liam said while scratching his head. He punched a few buttons on his DIC, bringing up a phone function that immediately began to ring. "Commander? It's me Liam. I've just reached the San Francisco branch. You could've mentioned the trouble going on here."

"You mean I didn't?" There was a small pause. "... Oh, well. Honest mistake."

"I hate to ask this, because I know last time she said she wouldn't come back to base and follow me instead..." Liam said, every pause taking its toll on him with the headache that was about to come. "I need to requisition Ranamon."

There was a pause on the other side of the call, which Liam already knew was just her grimacing for a moment. He knew she didn't like talking with her head scientist because 1) he scared the crap out of her for some reason and 2) for all his clipped manner of speaking the man could _talk_. And of course there was the other part of his request itself. "... I'll uh, I'll tell Mordin that. He'll have her set up for transfer when you get down to the HQ there." There was another pause. "Oh, and kid? Sorry about not telling you the sitrep there. And come back alive. Would be a shame to lose you."

"Yeah, I gotcha." Liam said, ending the call. "Right, I never told you Cassie. There's a reason I was chosen to lead this team, just like you two were chosen to join it." He sighed, scratching the back of his head. "I have the ability to scan any Digimon into the DIC. No Digimon I've fought has returned to the Digital World. Approximately one third of New York's Digimon partners are now Digimon from battles I've won."

"Huh." Rikarde blinked slightly, frowned slightly and began to open his mouth-

"So you're basically a Pokemon Trainer only it's Digimon and you have to kill them instead of nearly kill them." Cassi said flatly, raising her eyebrow at Liam. "Yes. I'd clearly follow a murderer into hell. Clearly."

'They don't die." Liam said exasperatedly. "Their data is saved and reconstructed inside the DIC. Most Digimon that go on the rampage aren't evil, just confused. Once their data has calmed most are perfectly civil."

"And also don't remember a lick of their old life." Cassi returned, "Which pretty much means that the person they were before is dead."

"The Digimon I've scanned always retain their memories." Liam said. He paused for a moment. "Wait, that isn't the case with other Digimon?"

Rikarde and Cassi shared an uncomfortable look with their Digimon, biting lower lips or breathing in deeply.

"No." Rikarde's Wormmon finally said.

"Can't say, we usually return the egg to the Digital World after we're done." Azrael spoke up.

"Oh. Well. They never told me that." Liam said, slumping back into his chair. "Wait, do you even believe me?"

"Hey, if you can believe what you've undoubtedly heard about me, then-"

"No, not really. It sounds fakey fake. Like your name. Is it really even Liam?" Cassi interrupted Rikarde before he could even finish. He looked rather cross with her. "I bet it's something else, like William, or Steven. Or Beethoven."

"Yes, you got me. My real name is totally Beethoven." Liam sighed.

"Let me tell them." Dolce huffed from the DIC.

"Fine. Dolce, realize!" Liam called, and Witchmon materialized onto the seat next to him. Puroromon floated off the seat and flopped onto her hat.

"The first time I came to the human world was from a portal over Europe. I was Witchmon at the time, and traveled over the sea to America. Admittedly I was less harmful than most Digimon when they come to the human world, but when I flew over New York the military shot at me, which caused a bit of anger." She grabbed Liam's DIC, tapping a few buttons before pulling up a news article and handing it to Rickarde. Cassi she had quite adamantly ignored. "That should cover the parts that get fuzzy, but when I next awoke it was in the lab of the DATS center, with Liam and Commander White watching over me. Though I was in baby form, I remember it quite clearly."

"Oh right, that was one of the incidents that really made Digimon a public thing in the States, didn't it?" Rikarde wondered allowed, reading the info. "Man, I remember being disappointed I didn't get to join in, looked like a super crazy fiasco. You're quite the firecracker, Lady Witch Lady."

"Hmph." Dolce said, pulling her hat over her eyes, though her rather pleased blush gave her away.

"However, I don't believe this little Puroromon will have a full memory. Unlike Digimon I've fought before, this one was made by a combination of a lot of Digimon, and had newly formed when I scanned it." Liam said.

"So, in other words, when you and Lady Witch over there took her down and scanned her, you effectively made a new person entirely?" Rikarde looked at them silently for a moment, before a teasing smile came to his lips. "Well now, congratulations on being parents you two. Mind the diapers, I hear those stink."

"That's not really it, but for the sake of simplification that's the best explanation we'll get I think." Liam said, ignoring the latter half of the statement. "Ranamon, on the other hand... is a different case." He sighed. "She joined DATS of her own free will right at the start. In her coming through the portal, she had apparently been chasing someone, but she completely forgot who. Since then she's hopped around from Tamer to Tamer as the need presented itself. She really loved to torture Dolce though, so I'm not sure how I'll convince her to go back after all this."

"Oh good, and the little baby has a second mommy." Rikarde laughed heartily. "Might want to watch their interactions then, if Rana is as much of a handful as you say she is. She could teach that little thing something you do not want her learning."

"You're an obnoxious one, aren't you?" Liam asked, exasperated once more.

"Now that's the kindest way anyone's ever called me an annoying bastard!" Rikarde laughed. "And yes, I am."

"Wonderful." Liam sighed. "Once Rana arrives, we'll have a stronger commander. Though she creates a big drain on DigiSoul. You may be more limited this time, Dolce."

"I'll manage. The water front is more important this time." Dolce responded.

There was a beeping sound at that moment, making everyone pause. Rikarde pulled a communicator in his coat out and stuck it to his ear. "Yeah, what do you want? I already grabbed 'em."

A small pause. His eyes suddenly went wide. "Wait, what!?"

"What happened?" Liam asked.

Rikarde took the communicator away from his ear for a moment. "A turncoat from their side wants to negotiate a deal!" He returned it back to his ear. "Are you sure? This sounds like a trap, they could be trying to get intel from us instead."

"Worth the risk." Liam said. "Even if he's trying to set some kind of trap, I can scan him if he tries anything funny. It would at least return him to egg form for a time."

Rikarde waved at Liam to shut up. "Yeah, I realize how difficult it would be for a giant sea serpent to be a goddamn spy, but come on, they're as intelligent as we are. Hell, probably more so. They're probably counting on us to think of it as just a big dumb brute and then BOOM! There goes HQ." He paused. "Yeah. Yeah. I know. I'll have the driver double time it, we'll be there."

He turned it off and placed it back in his coat, sighing. "Well, of all the things I was expecting, that wasn't one of them."

"A double agent eh? Or a turncoat. Whatever. Feels like its doom or fortune riding on the waves."

Cassi would have reached over to slap Liam for the pun, but considering that Dolce was out and they were still in a moving vehicle, she contented herself with beginning to plink him with left over peanuts from their plane ride.

"Tell me about it." Rikarde sighed, shaking his head. "This seems like the best sounding news we've had in months, but it could very well be the worst."

* * *

><p>Eventually the group finally got to the HQ. Honestly, it had felt like they had gone all the way across the city, and in that time Liam had practically been covered in the peanuts that Cassi had originally only been casually plinking him with. With every pun he made, though, her rain of peanuts had only fallen harder and harder until she was pelting him with them, which had led to Liam finally breaking his cool and yelling at her ("WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GETTING THOSE FROM!?") and her shouting back at him ("FROM THE DEPTHS OF MY HATRED FOR ALL THOSE HORRIBLE PUNS YOU'RE MAKING!") which led to a hilarious moment where they were arguing while throwing peanuts at each other. The entire situation had Rikarde busting his gut laughing and the Digimon awkwardly staring (except Dolce and Puroromon – Dolce because of a strange sense of vindication, and Puroromon because she was Puroromon).<p>

For a man that seemed to need a cane, Rikarde moved fast on his legs when he needed to be. He took them down several halls in the DATs HQ before coming to a special lab that was used for housing aquatic based prisoners - basically a giant pool with an electrified fence around it.

The water didn't go deep, only twenty feet or so but the pool was wide, and the current prisoner - a giant green sea serpent with red stripes on its back and wearing a golden mask on its face, - whom had a pitiable expression, considering his drooped nature.

Standing a good distance away from the fence was the Commander of this DATs Branch, who turned immediately as they entered. He wore a dark red Commander's coat with brown shoulders, a naval commander hat and his strong looking jaw was covered in stubble. His eyes were a deep brown. He had a small corn pipe between his lips. He saluted the group, which earned a response from Rikarde.

"Glad you could make it." The man stated.

"Glad we could, too." Rikarde replied.

"Liam from the New York Branch. Here on Commander White's orders."

"Cassi from the Illinois Branch. Here because I want more monies."

"Commander Colton Magnus." The Commander nodded back at them, though he stared at Cassi reprovingly for moment. The grin on her face never faltered.

"So this is the guy, huh?" Rikarde looked at the Seadramon in the pool with a frown. He obviously hadn't put up a fight, there were no wounds on him and he had allowed a collar to be put around his neck - one that was made of metal with a flashing green light that would turn on for a few seconds before turning off again; a bomb collar. It wouldn't do much but distract him for a moment, but that distraction would be all that would be needed to take him out if he decided to do something mischievous.

"Swam right into the bay and scared the hell out of some people on a ferry, asking for amnesty." Commander Magnus replied, looking up at the Seadramon as well. The creature had a placid look on its face and seemed to be trying to ignore the fact they were talking about him within earshot. "Apparently said he had some good info he wanted to share in return for protection. I wanted to wait for you since I heard from White that Liam over there is good with talking with these types." The man in question snorted quietly.

"Ah, I see." Rikarde nodded before thumping Liam on the shoulder. "Well, boy, you heard him; get to it."

"Boy did White pull one over on you there." Liam muttered to himself, before letting off a soft sigh. He walked over to the Seadramon. "So. Hi."

Rikarde and Commander Magnus both gained a terrible sinking feeling.

Since he was being addressed, Seadramon looked down at the human behind the electrified fence. "... Hello."

"Okay so. They said you swam into the bay and wanted amnesty and all that. What's going on that makes you so... willing to betray your fellow Digimon?"

Seadramon seemed to raise an eyebrow at him, but considering he had no visible eyebrows to raise he looked like he was just staring. "You're supposed to be the one I've to talk with? You don't seem all that experienced with this sort of thing."

"I'm not." Liam agreed. "I'm a new team leader of a new squad that hasn't even been officially formed. I can try to convince them to get someone more important in, but that might take too long, if you know what I mean."

"And you don't have a long time to learn what I've to say, yes." Seadramon sighed, before getting serious. "Very well then. I assume you lot know what's happening out to sea. Dagomon bringing the entire lot of us together to come and make a final strike against you. Probably even know about the portal he's working on. Correct?"

"Yeah, I got that much during the briefing on the way." Liam said.

"Very well that." Seadramon sighed again. "Reason I'm here is - I didn't want to be in that army. Lot of us weren't, actually; mostly coerced, brainwashed or threatened. Dagomon dudn't got that title of his, 'Dark' Priest of the Sea, for nothing yanno. He basically done anything to raise an army, the why I don't know but that ain't important. My group was the vanguard, basically; we're supposed to come in first and soften you lot up. I was went ahead by my group to instead negotiate with you lot on helping us get away from him; we'll even help fight. The boys are still out there, waiting for you to contact them and tell them they can come in and help you lot set up."

"Hmm. I understand what you're saying. And I'm convinced you aren't lying, problem is I don't call the shots, and I'm guessing you don't have anything that could really prove your good intentions?"

"Does it look like I've have hands to carry anything?" Seadramon asked sarcastically, waggling his flippers meaningfully. "You lot have sonar or something, don't ya? You should see that there are blips swimming much closer than the others. Those are my boys. And if they haven't gotten closer, that means they be waiting for ya."

Commander Magnus frowned at this before pulling a communicator out of his pocket. "I'll check with the command center to see if he's telling the truth. Keep him talking."

"Like I have any intention on stopping?" Seadramon scoffed as the man walked away. "It's my life on the line if I did, yanno!"

At that moment Liam's DIC began to beep rather incessantly. Clicking a button suddenly the rather animated face of Ranamon showed up.

"Hey Liam! It's been like, forever and you haven't even like, sent me a note or anything right? I mean, what's up with that! I was totally happy you asked to have me sent though, I kept hearing things about the oceans from my friends on the other side, but no one really believes me cause they think I'm like, weird and stuff. Hey Seadramon."

"What." The serpent couldn't help but stare.

"Well, that completely derailed what we were doing." Rikarde grinned awkwardly. Just when things were getting interesting, too.

"So are you like, gonna let me materialize or what?" Ranamon demanded.

"Realize." Liam said in a rather annoyed tone, and the water Digimon materialized into the room. She turned around to face the huge sea serpent, arms clasped behind her back as she stared up at him with inquisitive eyes.

"Wow, it really is you Seadramon, huh? There's a lot of you around, but I'm guessing you're related to Old Giga back in the Digital World eh? The Aqua Zone was its name back when I was there. Did that change?"

"Who are you?" Seadramon didn't look like he knew who she was, despite her words indicated she knew him in some way.

"Oh right, you like totally wouldn't remember me or anything. But like, I was there before your dad and mom did the funny duddy and I saw you as a baby form and you were like totally cute. Not that you aren't cute or anything now, but Seadramon tend to like go that like totally cool type route right? So I guess I can't really call you cute or anything like that cause like you'd get all shy about it and stuff. But I was more like thinking I could just go meet your team and help them set up a like underwater base and stuff, cause like San Francisco has a crap water team and like no base for them since it's like more of a bay than an ocean port. I bet like San Diego is where they have all their naval stuff too."

Seadramon was slowly rearing away from her, his eyes widening in distress at her constant barrage of words. Seeing their subject getting disturbed, Rikarde knocked the back of the green skinned little lady's helmet lightly with his cane twice. It made her stumble away and hold the back of her head, staring back at him in surprise.

"Oi, lady. Shut your noise hole for a little bit, would ya? You're making the guy we're supposed to be getting info from uncomfortable." He stated, watching out of the corner of his eye as Cassi began to grab her partner in a chokehold and begin to quietly accuse him of things. Azrael flailed uselessly in her grip, obviously trying to get away but not hurt his partner in the process.

"I am not." Ranamon immediately protested.

"You are." Liam said.

"I am?" Ranamon repeated, looking at him with tears in her eyes.

"Yes."

"Just ignore 'em, then." Rikarde turned to the Seadramon, waving his cane in the general direction of his colleagues. "You said you still have things to tell us?"

"Yea," Seadramon nodded slightly, still giving Ranamon an incredulous stare. "I-"

And then the entire base went on Red Alert.

"... That dudn't sound good." Seadramon said unnecessarily.

"It's not." Rikarde grimaced.

* * *

><p>The entire group, sans Seadramon, were led into the Command Center where several other agents were running around like headless chickens.<p>

"What's going on?" Rikarde yelled over the klaxon alarms that were sounding as red lights blazed in the room.

"The Commander was injured by an assassin!" One of the others yelled back. Rikarde and his partners visibly recoiled in surprise.

"What type of Digimon was the attacker?" Liam asked.

"Judging from the wounds, it could have been any Digimon with a slashing attack," Another agent reported. Judging from his badges, his status was probably close to Rikarde and Commander Magnus in level, and at the moment he was most likely the Acting Commander. "But since there weren't any other marks, it wasn't one with claws. At least we don't think."

"We do know the perp is still around, there's still a signal of a Digimon not tied to a human about but it's being muddied, we can't pinpoint the exact location." Another, this time at a console, spoke up. "I've been trying to get this blasted thing to work so we can find the little bastard!"

"Can you tell the level of it, at least?" Cassi spoke up, her partner still in a choke hold at her side. The poor boy was thrashing but still unable to escape.

"Rookie level at the least. The signal isn't that powerful, but you know what even an In-Training level Digimon can do to a human."

"One that isn't prepared, certainly." Liam said. "But considering he's the Commander of this base, I think he'd know how to handle one if it came to it. I'd say it'd have to be a rather rare type of rookie to mange it, or a champion that happens to be smaller in stature."

"Yeah, but right now something is muddling that tech-"

A different alarm began to sound now, and someone else at a different console began to curse. "You've got to be flipping kidding me!"

"Great, what now?" Rikarde growled, scowling. "What else has gone wrong?"

"There's something in the aquatic detention area! Other than the first prisoner!" The agent replied.

Rikarde immediately made an about-face and began to run back the way they came. Everyone else wasn't far behind.

* * *

><p><strong>After note: The ugly plot is beginning to rear its ugly head, but it's obviously not the Savers plot. That won't come in 'til later. Much later if I have my way.<strong>

**EDIT: Some minor edits were made when someone told me reminded me that Bermuda is over by Florida. Instead of changing the plot point I instead just decided to add a little mystery as to WHY they're attacking Cali and the West Coast and the like instead of going for the easier targets along the Atlantic.**

**I think you'll all be surprised by the answer in the next chapter. :P**


	4. Chapter 4

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong>Chapter 4: Raremon Delights<strong>

* * *

><p>Rikarde held up his hand to signal the others behind him when he came to a sudden halt. He frowned when they could hear a voice coming from the detention room they had left not too long ago, and he the guards the left to guard the room knocked out. From the protests coming from their DIC's, they had been taken out before their partners could be Realized.<p>

"So, you thought you could double-cross Lord Dagomon, did you? You filthy disgrace." A voice they didn't recognize hissed.

"His cause was one I dudn't believe in anyway. He killed my Grandfather just so he could enslave my entire Zone, do you really think I've want to work for that piece a' scum?" Their captive replied, a low growl to his words.

"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore; you're going to die today, just like those other traitorous pieces of filth and all these stupid little apes. And no matter what you told them, Lord Dagomon will still win, because I'll kill whoever else you told." The unknown

"You ain't getting away from this, jackass. Those humans'll be back and they'll knock ya back to an egg."

"Dolce, Ranamon, if you'd be so kind." Liam asked softly.

"Of course we can like, totally handle this part. Does Lucey wanna join in?"

"Like I'm going to let you girls have all the fun." Azrael scoffed.

"When I give the signal, you all go in." Rikarde told all of the Digimon. When it sounded like a buzzsaw was starting up, he quickly made a chopping motion with his arm and the five Digimon swiftly entered the room.

It would have normally been a hilarious sight to see a Gizamon, an orange furred amphibian Digimon with a row of black bladed horns, spinning while rolled into a ball on the floor like Sonic the freaking Hedgehog, but considering he was aiming at the Digimon currently enclosed in a pen and had practically no room to maneuver, it was no laughing matter.

The Digimon took care of it in an efficient manner, despite not having had teamed up before. Kunemon had jumped onto Ranamon's shoulder when they were entering the room, and shouted in an odd warbling voice, "Palsy Thread!" and spat out a glob of webbing that crackled with electricity. It hit the Gizamon before he could send himself flying at Seadamon and began to discharge, electrocuting the Digimon out of his roll and making him squeal like a pig.

When the crackling died down Lucemon flew over and sent the orange furred amphibian flying with an expertly executed kick, as if he had either done this before or had been practicing on a football.

Dolce used her Balaluna Gale to create walls of solid wind in Gizamon's flight path, sending him bouncing around like a demented ping pong ball. Or perhaps like a pinball. It all depended on what she felt like at the moment.

When she grew bored with it the Witchmon sent Gizamon flying up toward the ceiling, where Ranamon jumped to meet him and spiked him into the ground like an expert volleyball player.

To finish it off Wormmon, who had jumped onto Lucemon like his brother did Ranamon, shouted in a voice like his brother's, "Sticky Net!" and spat a glob of webbing as well. Only this one unfurled into a net as it flew and pinned Gizamon to the floor, trapping it in the rather ungraceful pose it had landed in.

Dolce stood over the now flattened Gizamon, twirling a finger in a rather threatening manner. "I recommend staying down, friend."

The Gizamon was so dazed he couldn't even snarl at her in defiance. Rana stood on his other side, a sword of water drawn in one hand and pointing down at him threateningly for when he was back in the right of mind.

"I heard screams 'fore he got in here, you lot okay?" Seadramon asked, looking concerned. "Did he really kill your leader?"

"Far as I know, he's injured, same as the guards out front. But it's nothing a little surgery and time to rest won't fix." Rikarde shook his head as he and compatriots walked into the room, looking up at the serpent grimly. "And I can guess the information you have to share is suitably important enough to warrant assassinating you?"

"Maybe, yeah, but that's just Dagomon's MO." Seadramon glared down at the Gizamon reproachfully. "He sends assassins in first to kill all the important figures so there's chaos for him to swoop in and reap the rewards from."

"Underhanded, but smart." Rikarde nodded slightly. "But answer my question, please. What's so important that you had to be silenced?"

"He can throw portals." Was Seadramon's answer. "He can throw them like a discus, and he's taken down too many places even in the Digital World that have tighter fortifications than just this city by throwing a well placed portal behind their lines, so he can get at 'em from both sides. Has a special fort wreaker just for it, it's his secret weapon besides the portal throwing."

"Well that... Changes just about the entire playing field, doesn't it." Rikarde sighed, gathering his thoughts. This news did not please him in the least. "We thought he was just going to call in reinforcements. And you mean to tell me he can just up and throw portals?"

"Not ones that are fully formed, but yes." Seadramon nodded. "He usually throws them just as they're about to explode into being. He won't attack until he has it near completed, and as I said we were sent ahead to soften you up and make the rest of the invasion easier."

"Well, now I know why my wound's been acting up. Portals and Bio-Emergence are just about the same." Rikarde sighed. "How long do we have until the portal is completed?"

"A couple of days. We were the first battle group sent to soften you up." Seadramon replied. "But he may try ta speed things up if he finds out that his vanguard are a bunch of deserters."

"Ranamon, get to the group in the water. Find a place to hole up. We need to have time to initiate a plan and swap duties around so people stop making such a fuss." Liam ordered. Ranamon saluted grandly, before rushing out.

Kunemon jumped over to Dolce before Ranamon took him out along with her, landing on her shoulder. He immediately began fussing softly over Puroromon. Dolce couldn't help rolling her eyes, if only a little.

"And I'm gonna need to take over leading duties until Commander Magnus is back on his feet." Rikarde sighed, adjusting his fur hat. "Knowing him though, he's probably going to participate in repellin' the invasion fresh out of the surgery room. Damn man is more stubborn than I."

"Get on that then." said Liam. "I'll see about getting Seadramon here released from that annoying collar thing so he can join up with Ranamon and all that. Cassi... you do whatever."

"Yeah, I'll make sure everyone else is doing their job. That will be my job. I will be the driving force behind our endeavors." Cassi's word sounded sarcastic, and her smile looked sarcastic, but like Liam and Rikarde there was a grim glint to her eyes. Even she when she was preparing for war, the sarcastic tone of her voice made it seem like Cassi was joking. She pulled slightly on her tank top, creating a deeper valley of cleavage. It seemed obvious what she was going to motivate the base with. As they left, Liam could hear her and her partner beginning to argue.

"You're _not_ doing that." Azrael stated.

"Azzy, let my hands go." Cassi all but ordered.

"You keep on doing stupid things with them, hands free rights are now revoked." Azrael grumped.

"The hell does that even mean, babu?" Cassi sighed.

"_Anyway_, what are we going to do about him?" Rikarde cast a glare over at the fallen Gizamon. He had begun to struggle lightly as his senses returned, though he didn't do much else but bare his teeth at them; Dolce's threatening finger was really threatening.

"Uh... I could just scan him, I suppose. Unless you think trying to hold him prisoner would be better." Liam said, though he grimaced slightly at the idea.

"He's injured several people and intended to kill many more." Rikarde glared at the Gizamon. "And I don't think he'd make a good partner Digimon as is. I'd suggest just letting us explode him back to an egg."

"Like I'd let you do that, human." Gizamon sneered sneerfully.

"Remember my scanning, while it isn't always the best solution, will essentially make him harmless." Liam said, trying not to let Rikarde's rather harsh words get to him. "At the very least he won't be in a physical form without someone Realizing him."

"Yeah, but he's an unrepentant murderer. I would feel far more comfortable with him gone." Rikarde retorted, looking over at Liam. "I don't want someone getting injured or killed because we decided to spare him."

As they bickered, Gizamon began to mutter something under his breath.

"I'm scanning him." Liam said plainly. "Not to supersede you, but trying to deal with him and possibly any sort of portal he might have on him is too dangerous to not scan."

"And I said he's too dangerous to just keep around in a DIC. He's proven it by attacking Commander Magnus, those guards and even Big Green over here." He motioned toward Seadramon, who was watching this go on with growing concern. "He might somehow get out when we least want him to-"

"He's chanting something, by the way. Should I take off his head?" Dolce asked in her monotone voice as her finger glowed threateningly at the Gizamon.

"Dagomon, I give my soul to you!" The Gizamon shouted quickly now that Dolce had brought their attention back to him, forgoing any sort of ceremony. "Give me the strength to destroy your enemies and please make it quick ohgodohgodoh-"

Green lightning suddenly shot from the sockets around the room as an invisible force blasted the entire group away; Liam and Rikarde landed in heaps, while Dolce was nearly knocked into the electrified fence with Kunemon and Puroromon clinging to her: she was only saved by Kunemon spitting a bit of webbing that acted like a bungee cord and slung them away from it. Wailing spirits flew in from everywhere and began to flow around the Gizamon as a dark form with an octopus head shimmered in the shadows. Red eyes blazed as the form looked down at the Gizamon - who was quickly regretting this decision by the look on his face - before the thing spoke;

"**VERY WELL. SINCE YOU HAVE FAILED IN YOUR TASK, I AM ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.**"

"Wait god no-!" The shadow leapt from the wall and flew into the screaming Gizamon's mouth, who began to choke and sputter as the thing entered his body. When it had disappeared, he suddenly jerked and slumped, falling deathly silent.

"What the hell is going on!?" Cassi shouted as she and Azrael slid back into the room. Well, she slid. Azrael may have been still clinging to her hands but he was floating like he always did.

"I don't know, I've never seen that before." Liam said to Rikarde as they stood up. "Have you?"

"Only once in person. Same guy doing the 'Assuming Direct Control' thing, too." Rikarde was frowning hard. "You're going to want to look away."

"Why? What's gonna hap-" Cassi's words were interrupted when Gizamon's body, which had been turning a disturbing pale coloration during their exchange, suddenly jerked again. An unearthly moan began to issue forth from the poor thing as its body seemed to pulse - and grow. Its flesh became mottled as its body expanded, breaking the sticky net holding it down. Disturbing cracks came from its body and its fur and back horns began to fall off. Its flesh gained the consistency of old stale pudding as metal tubes began to poke out from its back and its face began to deform, so much so that one of its eyes became rather lazy and its mouth became far too big - teeth falling out of it. A foul stench filled the air as its moans became louder and less natural, sounding less sentient and more like a tortured soul from the abyss.

And all throughout it, Cassi kept repeating "oh god" over and over again.

"Pleasant." Dolce intoned, which was so helpful and necessary that Liam almost chuckled. But he didn't. Because serious business was happening here. Yes.

"And that's why I said to look away." Rikarde frowned, watching the putrid monster right itself. "Every time it's been the same. Whenever we've caught one of his agents, they call on him, and he does this. Made them useless as captives. Raremon, Champion level Virus type Undead Digimon. They feel no pain but are entirely instinct driven. They have no mind left after he's done with them."

"So I should've scanned him after all." Liam said putting a hand over his face. "If you knew this had happened before why stop me? Now he's useless for even the barest amounts of information."

"Because we have all we need from Big Green." Rikarde rolled his neck and got the kinks out of with audible cracking sounds. "I just wanted to kill'em and be done with it, but you were being a baby about it. Oh well! Looks like I get my way anyway." He pulled his DIC from his coat pocket, and two-toned DigiSoul began to glow around his closed fist - burning gold cubes and in a fire of navy blue. "Ready Warren, Leonard?"

"Aye sir!" Kunemon jumped from Dolce's shoulder and landed in front of his partner.

"Of course." Wormmon did the same, jumping off Azrael's shoulder.

"Let's do this!" Rikarde grinned a feral grin and slammed his palm down onto the DigiSoul port of his DIC, whose screen glowed as it converted for use in his partner's Digivolution. "DNA Charge!" He pointed it at his partners and both they and it flashed.

"Wormmon, Digivolve too!" The green worm partner called as his form changed in the light. His body melted away and his ten segmented legs melted into two arms and legs. His body grew into a torso and his head morphed and lost a visible mouth. Segmented eyes appeared on his carapace and blazed with brilliant red coloration. He grew five claws as fingers on each hand and two as toes. Delicate dragonfly wings grew onto his back, and he struck a pose as two ports formed on his forearms that blasted out a laser sword each. "Stingmon!"

"Kunemon, Digivolve too!" The yellow one's body grew larger and became more like a large wasp; losing many of his legs to form a single set of legs and two sets of arms that ended in blade-like claws. He grew brown fur around his neck, and two sets of large, tattered violet wings with eye markings on the tips out of his back. He retained his stinger in his thorax, and he buzzed his wings rapidly as he took to the air, spreading a light powder around. "Flymon!"

"Let's take this outside!" Stingmon said before leaping at Raremon, slamming into him shoulder first ramming him into a wall - and through it.

Flymon took after them, yelling out, "Oi, wait for me Big Bro!"

"Don't just stand there, let's go join the fun!" Rikarde grinned at his compatriots before following his partners.

"Right. I might have to sit it out. Ranamon's draining a lot of DigiSoul and if Dolce gets in a fight she'll likely end up back in rookie form. Cassi, I know you're not officially on the clock right now, but back him up for me, would you?" Liam said.

"Well, I did say that I would be making sure everyone did their job, so..." Cassi trailed off when she saw Azrael already following the others out. "Looks like my mind's made up for me!" She laughed, a little sheepish, before chasing them too.

Not long after she left, however, Seadramon cleared his throat and gave Liam a look. "Get someone to get this collar off of me and get me out of here." He stated. "I wanna help."

"Sure thing big guy." Liam said with a grin. "I thought you might be getting tired of that fence anyway."

"A little bit, yea." Seadramon said with a hint of a smile. 

* * *

><p>What Cassi saw as soon as she got out of building (several holes in the walls told her Stingmon had bashed Raremon through every single one) was hilarious in its onesidedness. Stingmon and Flymon were literally flying circles around the Raremon, peppering it with Brown Stingers and Moon Shooters that blew chunks off of it, but didn't seem to really harm it; the spots affected just grew right back before her eyes. However, it couldn't hit them either, just breathing out gasses that were either two slow to hit, or were blown away by their constant wing beats.<p>

She saw her own partner high in the sky, lining up a shot - his Grand Cross attack out and fully ready to bring the pain.

Stingmon seemed to get that and gave a signal to his brother, and he and Flymon darted away into the sky, away from their opponent. Azrael let out a shout as he rained fireballs that bore resemblance to the nine planets of the solar system on the Undead Digimon, who let out an amazingly horrid screech as the holy fire left behind by them caused its flesh to bubble and boil in the ugliest way imaginable. The stench of its burning flesh wasn't much better, nor was it an improvement to its already putrid smell.

"It's just taking our attacks so far!" She called to Rikarde, who was standing a ways from her to not make them a tempting target for the Raremon. To prove her point, Raremon stumbled away from her partner's line of fire, and all the damage done to him instantly began to heal - as if nothing had hurt him in the first place. "Nothing they do seems to hurt it! What do we do?"

"Either wait for backup or try to make an attack powerful enough to eggify it in one shot!" Rikarde called back, but he didn't seem to know how to do the latter just yet as he made no suggestions to their Digimon; he just sat back and watched the battle. 

* * *

><p>"OUCH!" Liam jerked his hand away from the broken console, shocked for the third time since he started trying to work it. "Sonofa... friggin tech guy is unconscious so now I have to fiddle with the thing myself..." He muttered darkly to himself as he worked on the rather ominously sparking computer panel. "Better hope I don't set you on fire or something Seadramon."<p>

"I have water here if ya do." Despite his words, Seadramon did look like he was hoping Liam didn't, indeed, set him on fire. 

* * *

><p>The three of them flew around in the air constantly, dodging and blowing away clouds of acrid gasses that flowed from the Undead Digimon's mouth. The thrill of a fight had waned in all three of them at this point, and they were wondering how the hell they were going to bring this thing down - it just kept on healing despite their best efforts, and no damage they made stuck to it. It was honestly annoying them, but it really got to Azrael who took to cursing at the stupid Raremon as he tried to blow it the hell up.<p>

Cassi bit her lip as she watched. This was harder than she or Azzy had to face in a long time, and it was giving her thoughts of doing something she and her partner did not like doing. She'd even took what looked like a communicator out of her pocket and was fiddling with it, trying to come to a conclusion before finally she reached one.

"Azrael!" She called up to him. He paused and looked down at her. "Get down here! I want to talk real quick!"

"Can it wait? In the middle of a fight!" He called back, dodging another cloud of decaying breath.

"No, now get down here!" She shouted. Azrael huffed before throwing another set of planet-shaped fireballs down at Raremon to keep him busy for a little bit before diving down to where she was, hiding behind an abandoned car.

"Okay, what's so important that it couldn't wait?" He asked as he ducked down with her.

"I'm going to release one of the limiters on your powers." Cassi said after taking a deep breath. Azrael stared at her in disbelief.

"No." He finally managed to get out.

"Azzy-"

"No, don't you _dare_ 'Azzy' me! You know what happens when I don't have those things on me! You know what I was like before I got them! I will _not_ return to being that person, and I know as soon as I get one removed I'm going to want all of them gone!" Azrael ranted, not letting her get a word in edgewise. "What made you think this was going to be anything less than a stupid idea, anyway!?"

"Because you're my partner," Cassi said softly, reaching over to cup his cheek in one of her hands. She had an intense look in her eyes, mixed with an odd sense of sadness. "And I have faith in you."

Azrael's lips flapped for a moment. "I... I'm touched, I really am, but it's still a ridiculously retarded idea! I am not trustworthy when I have them off, I could just decide to continue doing that stupid thing's job..."

"You won't," Cassi reassured him, gently petting his cheek with her thumb. "Because I'm here. And you wouldn't hurt me, would you...?"

"As I am right now, no, but I'm a monster without those limiters." He returned, the beginnings of tears in his eyes. "Cassi, please, don't do that to me. I don't want to risk it. I'm a monster without those, I-"

"For the love of God get a room already!" Rikard ruined the moment as he shouted at them from where he stood - in open ground, in the middle of the street. He was watching the battle otherwise. 

* * *

><p>"GOT IT!" Liam cried out triumphantly, as the collar fell away, just as Dolce managed to power off the electric fence that Liam had failed to do. "Now, hurry up, I think I heard something about God and rooms. That's never a good sign."<p>

"Okay going to go help now." Seadramon literally flew out of the pool and out of the hole in the wall that had been made earlier, eager to go and help with the battle. 

* * *

><p>"Please, Azrael, we need this or else we probably won't win here. And we need to win so we can get ready for that invasion thing." Cassi tried to placate her partner, but he was having none of it.<p>

"No, no, no, a thousand times no! I don't want it, we'll find another way! Because I know what sort of slippery slope that is!" He shouted back, shaking his head rapidly. "You're going to want to take off more of them when the invasion happens and I'll blow up the entire city because that's what all Lucemon like to do! Commit mass murder and destruction because that's how we get our jollies off-"

Meanwhile, far away from this argument, Stingmon had become rather daring and had gone into melee range to start smashing around Raremon with punches and kicks that had the blobby sonofabitch jerking and bouncing in every direction, but once more didn't seem to really hurt it. Its ethereal moans were being interrupted with every blow to the face which made its entire head jerk to one side, or every axe kick that made its odd, lazy eyes bug out like some sort of cartoon character. It would have been hilarious, but as this was a serious situation it was merely ridiculous.

"Why won't you lay down and die already?" Stingmon questioned, irritation and frustration in his warbled voice.

"He kinda already did that, Big Bro!" Flymon told him as he shot a barrage of Brown Stingers into the Raremon's back - all of which just popped right out as they were pushed out by a mystical force, the wounds left behind healing back over. "It's why he's like this kinda!"

"Leonard?"

"Yeah bro?"

"Shut up!"

"Aw, kay..."

"Azzy." The time for comforting was over, apparently. Cassi's finger was hovering over a button on the device. "I'mma do it."

"Don't you do it!" Azrael protested.

"I'mma do it!"

"Don't you do it!"

"I'mma _fucking_ do it!"

"Cassi for the love of-!"

She did it. One of the buttons on the device was pressed, and the effect was instantaneous. The circlet Azrael wore suddenly lost the shine in its ruby, and his eyes widened before a blast of white light radiated around him. Cassi was thrown away from him, as well as the car, and the pavement exploded under him causing shards of it to spread away as well.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD...!" He cried out as the power coursed through him. Stingmon, Flymon and even the Raremon all stopped to stare as he screamed to the sky. 

* * *

><p>"Huh. That's possibly something amazing or something world endingly bad." Liam said as he sat on the ground. He grimaced slightly. Out of consideration for him Dolce had returned to Rookie form and the DIC along with Puroromon, but even then the drain on his DigiSoul from Ranamon was causing him trouble. "I'm praying for the former, personally." <p>

* * *

><p>Raremon flew down the street, through a building and landed in a heap just from the almost casual kick Azrael had given him after the little angel seemingly teleported in front of him. He was then sent flying up in the air after he stood woozily back up, Azrael having planted a punch into his chin; well, more like a mere casual rapping of his knuckles. Raremon was sent flying back down from an expertly placed axe kick, and landed in a crater right where the poor Undead Digimon had once been standing.<p>

Stingmon and Flymon hovered back, watching this incredulously. They were still blown back when Azrael came back down as a comet of blazing white light that smashed into where Raremon was, driving him down deeper into the pavement with an explosive impact.

"Oi, watch what you're doing you little ankle biter!" Stingmon shook his fist at the serenely floating - and glowing - figure of Azrael.

"If you do not want to be in the crossfire, then simply stand aside," The boy wasn't even looking at them - was staring at nothing, really, - and didn't seem himself. He had spoken calmly, for example, completely monotone and without any sort of infliction; completely different from how he had spoken before.

Seadramon finally found his way out of the building and looked around at the signs of battle - torn up road, battered cars, a crater in the middle of the street, a freaking collapsed building down the road, - and couldn't help but comment, "Human things were not build to last, were they?"

"Glad you could join us," Rikarde said, helping Cassi steady herself. Apparently she'd hit her head when she landed and was stumbling as she walked, so Rikarde had offered his shoulder and cane to help her out. The injured leading the injured, an interesting sight. "Though as you can see, everything's fine now. Might want to go help that Rana out in finding your dudes, might need it."

As he finished speaking, and before Seadramon could even think about replying, the ground behind Rikarde and Cassi suddenly bubbled and exploded. The two turned in shock, everything slowing to a near standstill as Raremon suddenly rose from the hole he had made behind them. Seadramon's eyes widened. Azrael gained a look of shock as he looked over at the sound of his partner's surprised cry, his eyes gaining emotion to them again. Stingmon and Flymon were already flying over to their partner, their reactions trained at this point to no longer freeze up when the unexpected happened.

"Cassi!" Azrael cried out.

"Rikarde!" Stingmon and Flymon shouted.

"No you don't!" Seadramon roared and gave Raremon a full body ram as it was about to breathe an acrid cloud down on the two humans. "Not'n my watch!"

The Raremon merely released its breath on his body instead as they both flew away from the humans, and the sea serpent let out a pained scream as his scales began to peel and melt away under the decaying assault. But he wasn't going to take it lying down.

"Ice Arrows!" He cried, breathing a barrage of arrows made of glowing, blue frosty energy that exploded around Raremon's body and froze him completely solid where he had bounced and rolled too. Then Stingmon and Flymon rammed right through his frozen body, shattering it to pieces.

"Grand Cross!" Azrael shouted, voice reverberating in his outrage as he threw down fireball after planet shaped fireball, which, needless to say, reduced those icy chunks of Raremon to nothing more than vapor. From whatever remains of the Digimon that were left, exploded into Data that then formed into an orange and black striped egg.

Rikarde looked up from where he was covering Cassi with his body and coat, having tackled her away from Raremon's emergence point to try and save her life at the very least. He gave a wince at seeing the horrible damage done to Seadramon just by the Raremon's breath alone and couldn't help but think, 'Glad that's not us.'

"Do you mind?" The girl with a concussion under him groused lightly. Rikarde immediately moved and helped the girl sit up.

"Better?" The man asked.

"A little. Now tell your twin brother to go away, he has an annoying face." Cassi groaned in pain, adjusting her glasses. When he'd tackled her to the ground they had been knocked askew.

"I'll be sure to tell him that." Rikarde gave her a frown before helping her stand. He gave a strained growl as he did so, as it was infinitely harder without his cane, and it took them both a few tries to stand considering she was suffering from a head injury on top of his own lameness.

When they finally stood, he looked over at the egg again, frowning. "I hate dealing with those things."

"How did you even defeat them before? Raremon seem so annoying to fight." Cassi asked.

"We had to sacrifice a few city blocks is how. We've had to blow them right the hell up." Rikarde grimaced.

"My favorite policy." Azrael said as he floated up to them, his face slack and emotionless once more. He still had a concerned look in his eyes, however, so he wasn't all gone. "Are you alright, Cassi?"

"I'll be better when you and your friends all decide to stop dancing in front of me." The young woman groaned. This brought a frown to his face as he looked around in confusion. What friends?

"Looks like Ranamon found the Seadramon group." Came Liam's voice. "She's leading them to their new hiding spot as we speak. Must say though, you guys certainly put on a show, from the sounds of it." He had just arrived, smiling lightly. He wasn't injured like the other two were, so he didn't see reason to complain. It seemed likely they'd do all the complaining for him.

"Finally some good news." Rikarde gave a relieved sigh, shaking his head. "Now all we gotta do is get ready, and with Seadramon's help we can organize his friends out there for battle."

"I'm looking forward to it." Seadramon growled, despite the flinch of pain he gave. "I want that bastard to pay for everythin' he's done. My family didn't deserve it, Ol' Giga didn't deserve it and everythin' we done since then to other people didn't deserve it."

"**SILLY SERPENT.**" The world suddenly exploded in a blast of green light and electricity. The egg burst as the humongous dark form from that had invaded the Gizamon's body jumped from it. Its coils knocked everyone away and wrapped around Seadramon's entire body in an instant, constricting and burning into him with a harsh hissing sound. The poor sea dragon began to roar in pain, even with the tentacle squeezing his throat shut. "**YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW, 'DESERVE' HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT**."

"Shit." The three tamers said in unison from where they had been knocked.

"**I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS FOR A LONG TIME, LITTLE SERPENT.**" The dark shadow continued, not at all concerned about his audience or that Seadramon writhed and wrestled in his grip. He wasn't breaking free. "**I KNEW FROM DAY ONE THAT YOU WOULD NOT SERVE QUIETLY. TOO MUCH LIKE THAT FOOL GIGA. AND NOW ALL THOSE LIKEDMINDED OF YOURS ARE RIGHT WHERE I CAN SLAUGHTER THEM LIKE SHEEP. SADLY, THAT IS ALL YOU WERE EVER USEFUL FOR, SO NOW I"M AFRAID YOU HAVE TO** hrk."

That was a weird place for the villain's monologue to end. But who interrupted. Not by Flymon, or Stingmon, or even Lucemon however. Nor Dolce or Ranamon or the ever adorable Puroromon. Who interrupted him?

Rikarde did. He had summoned his DigiSoul to his hands, and used one to send out a whip of the energy to wrap around where the shadow's neck would have been if it had been human. He had tugged it back toward him after that, the shadow twisted to look at where he was going with wide glowing eyes as it was forced to release Seadramon, and then with a yell he smashed his other DigiSoul coated first right into where its cheek would have been if it, once again, were human. The sound of the blow was explosively titanic, making the others flinch back in surprise. The shadow was sent flying away, disappearing before it hit the ground - obviously whatever was casting it being having its concentration massively disrupted by the punch.

Rikarde took a few steps toward where the shadow had fallen, arms held wide in a position of 'Come at me, bro!'. "Jackass, you got served!" He shouted tauntingly. "Show your face again and see what you get for messing with Cali, I dare ya!"

"That was well done." Liam said, eyebrows raised. "Incredibly stupid, but well done."

"Learned it from Dr. Damon." Rikarde returned. "Think that was foolhardy, you should ask the good doctor how he got his first Digimon partner. Fought him, hand to hand, until they both couldn't move anymore. And his partner is naturally a Mega level. _That's _insane."

Despite the casual dialogue, however, he was by Seadramon's side with both of his partners. The poor serpent lay on the ground, breathing shallowly, many more melted burn marks on his body from where the shadow had been touching him. At least they knew where the ability to breathe out those decaying breaths came from now.

"Are you alright?" Liam asked Cassie, who was still hunched over with Azreal floating overhead.

"Honestly, I would have been better without all the loud noises." She groaned, looking up at him blearily. "Could you tell your five brothers to stop dancing? It's making me dizzy."

"They like to move it move it."

"Oh screw you." She hissed in return.

"I don't think your partner would appreciate that." Liam stated.

"He can join in."

"Cassi. No." Azrael sighed in a longsuffering fashion.

"I'll leave you to it then." Liam patted her on the shoulder.

"Gimme some sugar, babu."

"Cassi, go to bed. You're drunk."

"More like concussed. And since I can't sleep with one, I need something to keep me awake-"

"Cassi, I'm pretty sure that would make it worse, plus I already told you I don't have those parts."

"Love will find a way!"

"Would you guys stop farting around and help out over here? Critically injured dude needs some help!" Rikarde butted in again. Seadramon had started writhing weakly on the ground, obviously distressed. "Liam, you said you can scan guys with that special DIC or whatever of yours, right? Can you do that so he doesn't die?"

"Yeah, give me one second." Liam said, before a small beep emitted from his DIC. "Good, Ranamon's finished. That means I'll have full control here. You'll want to step back."

"Right." Rikarde gave the serpent a pat on his snout. "Don't worry buddy, you'll get help real quick."

With that, his partners degenerated back down to their base forms and climbed to his shoulders, and he stepped away to let Liam do his work.

Liam closed his eyes, breathing in deeply as he did so. He spread his arms out, seemingly to creating a kind of enclosed space, which surrounded Seadramon. "Welcome to the stage." He said softly. "Now, as I assume you are a less violent individual, I would ask that you open your heart to me freely so I may save you." Liam encroached upon the space he himself had created, and as he did so his clothing appeared to change. A white doctor's coat was now draped around his shoulders, and a stethoscope hung around his neck. The tinted glasses he wore became clear, and he pushed them up lightly as he examined his patient.

"What are you doing?" Seadramon wheezed, looking at Liam in surprise.

"Saving you, if you'll allow it." Liam said, pushing up the doctor glasses once more. "Of course, I'm not about to let you die, so I'll do it by force if I have to, but I'd prefer not." Liam examined the wounds more closely. "Right, well then, I recommend you let yourself be scanned. From there, I can have my DigiSoul cure you rather quickly. It's not bad enough that you'll need to return to egg form, so after you're healed you can go or whatever you want."

"How long is 'rather quickly'?" The Seadramon questioned, laying his head down and closing his eyes. Some wouldn't be so trusting as he was being at the moment, allowing this to happen, but these humans so far hadn't done bad by him. They had even saved him - twice, going on thrice counting on this. He had a feeling it wasn't purely out of the goodness of their hearts but accepting help and living was definitely better than dying.

"Well, it depends on my own DigiSoul. Unfortunately I'm drained out right now, but if I can eat and replenish... You'll likely be better by tomorrow evening." Liam said. "Of course, that's just my analysis, and there are other events that could easily interfere."

"Fine. Get it over with; my boys are probably missing me at this point, no matter your Rana's words." And he gave himself up, allowing himself to be absorbed into the Digivice so he could be healed.

As Seadramon did so, a line of golden code formed around his body. "Excellent." Liam said, as his Digivice began to shine in unison with the code. "Now, through the power of science, and doctoral medicine that really has nothing to do with treating Digimon, you will be healed!" As he said those words, Liam scanned the code, and Seadramon vanished in a flash of light that entered his DIC. Once it was done, Liam collapsed to the ground. "Whew, performing when empty on DigiSoul is not the best experience."

"Yeah, you should probably hand over Ranamon until you can actually handle her, boyo." Rikarde came over and offered a hand. Like before he was helping carry Cassi around, carrying both his partners, but he didn't seem bothered by all of the weight. "You've probably not gotten your Digimon to Ultimate naturally yet, and that little girl seems to be taking as much as one. I can probably handle her better right now."

"Yeah, I would do that, but Ranamon seems to have registered herself as my Digimon now. I can't transfer her from my DIC without some BS paperwork that is not going to happen right now. I'll just have to keep a full stomach and drink lots of water." Liam said. "Although, I'd like to examine your more official DigiSoul records. I may transfer Seadramon to you to speed up his recovery."

"Hey, as it stands right now I'm acting commander. If it's paperwork that needs to be filled out I'll do it. But I can take either, probably both." Rikarde shrugged, tugging the other man to his feet, pretty much grabbing him like he had Cassi, and began to lead them all into the building despite his growing limp. "I'm gonna need a second in command for now though, so I'll probably have you reviewing whatever you want until the battle. If you wanna see my records, hey, they're all yours."

"Great. By the way, that punch... You are able to use your DigiSoul for more than offense, right?" Liam asked.

"As I said, I learned from Dr. Spencer Damon. I can do whatever the hell I need with it, though usually it's for punching out fools like Shadow Octopus."

"Good. It seems Cassi has a lot of DigiSoul, but has no clue how to use it."

"Haven't needed to," The girl cut in.

"Thank you, Cassi. And I'm terrible at explaining things. Maybe you'll be able to help her with that." Liam said, scratching his head. "But first... can we get something to eat?"

"Sure, though you're going to have to deal with either home cooking or cafeteria food. The first businesses that ran off in this city were the fast-food joints. Bunch of deserters." Rikarde said with a chuckle. 

* * *

><p><strong>After note: And the first dropping of an F-bomb. I'll try not to make it a regular occurrence. I don't want the rating of my fic to increase.<strong>

**Speaking of firsts, that's the first mention of a canon Savers character other than Commander Richard Sampson. This won't be the last. And due to the context of how it was dropped, I don't need to say it but I will anyway: I'mma give the Savers canon plot such a makeover it's mama won't recognize it. In this case, Dr. Damon wasn't in the Digital World for an untold amount of years (well, he was gone for a little while but he actually made it back in this story instead of wandering everywhere doing jackshit) and came back to the Real World with his partner Digimon, whom I'm sure all of you that knows Savers will correctly guess who that is. :P This is changed due to a few other big changes that I do not want to reveal due to it basically being spoilers, but... Prepare for a wild ride people. It will only get crazier from here.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 5: The Seaside Battle Part 1<span>**

* * *

><p>The DICs beeped as they finished their transfer, Seadramon now safely sleeping away in Rikarde's DIC.<p>

They had gone back to his apartment, an expensive looking penthouse condo dealie that was in a building somewhat close to HQ. It wasn't the tallest building, but the roof was wide and allowed Rikarde to set up a small garden that allowed him to produce his own fresh fruits and vegetables, some of which he used to make the night's dinner. Liam had eaten the home cooked meal like a starved, though cultured, man. His host had honestly never seen utensils be used so quickly, though Rikarde had noted that Liam looked like he just wanted to shovel things into his face with his own two hands at some points.

The drain was significant on healing Seadramon, but Rikarde had felt worse, most of it when he had first began his tenure as an agent. Closer still it was like the first Digivolution his partners had gone to Ultimate - at the same time. Knocked him right out for a week, it was why he usually only had one an Ultimate at a time, though lately he'd managed a Champion and Ultimate combo. The drain was actually helping him settle, as he was usually a bundle of nervous energy, especially in the evenings.

Warren watched in fascination as Liam's arm blurred between his plate and his mouth, almost inhaling his food. Rikarde hadn't waited for a call of seconds before placing another helping of the chicken stroganoff in front of him, which began to rapidly disappear. He knew what it was like to need to recover your reserves like that; being a DATS agent was a physically taxing job. Leonard was playing with Puroromon, whom he had dubbed 'Little Bee', to give Dolce a break. He was currently trying to teach the baby bee to fight in a playful manner.

"Okay Little Bee, you saw my attack, now you try!" The Kunemon puffed himself out. "C'mon, I can take it. Now give it to me!" The baby Digimon slowly buzzed in on him, angling her stinger to poke him. As soon as it did, he realized the horrible mistake he made as her venom was injected into his body. Puroromon didn't have venom that would outright kill something, unlike most other Bee Digimon, but it was a venom that rendered the victim paralyzed through intensely painful convulsions.

"OH GOD I REGRET EVERYTHING!" Leonard cried, spazzing out and rolling off the table to flop about on the ground. Puroromon decided to be extra helpful then as she flew down to him and sat on his multi-segmented underside while buzzing contentedly, grinning her odd, innocent little grin. "WHY DID I THINK THIS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?!"

"Because you're a moron." Warren rolled his eyes.

"Yanno, I think the entire reason why you can't really handle little ol' Rana," Rikarde began, setting the pot down on the kitchen table so Liam would have easier access to the food. The humans were ignoring their Digimon's antics. "Is because you're trying to keep an Ultimate level while you're barely in the Champion range yourself."

"It's not that." Liam said. "Ranamon causes the same drain on any tamer. They said it's because her ultimate form isn't as stable as it should be. Technically any form above rookie isn't stable, no matter the DigiSoul." He stopped to take a long drink of water, finishing off the cup. "Also, the ability to scan comes at the cost of using up my DigiSoul. The reason Dolce has only been recently in champion form more often is because I wasn't being used to scan every Digimon we came across. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's just tiring is all."

"Ah, so that's why. I read your records while you read mine. For some reason they have you listed as low Champion, because you haven't kept your partner as Champion for longer than a couple hours. That is, on their record." Rikarde said, folding his hands on the table.

"You saw my 'performance.'" Liam said. "I create essentially a digital space in the real world, which then keeps the Digimon within it. From there, it's a battle of wills, with occasional helpings of fire from Dolce's rookie form. The Digimon can't escape the field once it's been created, though usually that's because we ensure they're worn out before using it. If I tried it on a full power Digimon, it'd likely be shattered."

"So you couldn't say, use it on Dagomon as soon as he rises from the sea." Rikarde frowned, sad to know such a useful power wouldn't be of much use in that regard.

"Well I could. But it probably wouldn't work since he'll be full strength and is hell bent on killing us. I do have to not die during the performance for it to work, you know." Liam said with a sarcastic grin.

"Yeah, I guess that could be a detriment." Rikarde leaned back, sighing. "Honestly, more and more people like you are showing up, with some weird 'mutation' to their DigiSoul that allows them to do more than just Digivolve their Digimon. Or if they're reckless like me and Dr. Damon, punching the hell out of the ones that piss us off. Not all of them are beneficial like yours though."

"Yeah well..." Liam stopped eating, putting his utensils down. He found he was finally full. "I guess you could say I hate conflict." He shrugged. "You're much better than the last guy I saw who punched Digimon. His DigiSoul was too dangerous to be used for healing. Instead it was more like... an adrenaline booster."

"Ah, I think I know who you're talking about." Rikarde leaned back again, frowning. "Some people just get raw deals like that. Wasn't he eventually let go because he couldn't heal his own Digimon? Or did he just go into punching Digimon full time?"

"He works with a Mamemon. The DATS center can still heal Digimon just fine, so he's used more as a frontline force during larger conflicts. They keep him off small time tasks though." Liam explained.

"I see. Maybe I'll see about flying him and anyone else you can think of that can get out here quickly. This is a large conflict that's about to happen and we need all the help we can get. Magnus was even trying to call the Digital World and get help from some of the Digimon Governments there, and I might need to continue that. I know a few guys on the other side that might want to help us, friends of Dr. Damon that he introduced me to." Rikarde tapped the floor with his foot. Still had that nervous energy, dang it.

"He's in England now, so I wouldn't count on it." Liam said. "I did send Commander White a message, but she's been dealing with politicians and governmental agencies lately, so she might have her hands tied."

"Ugh." Rikarde growled, rubbing his brow. "And I can't call help from Japan, they're smaller and they're dealing with their part of the invasion. Australia is out of the question too, but they've been hit less because all the agents down there are as terrifying as Five Nights at Freddy's and frankly they all scare the hell out of me. Only places we got left are Africa, Europe and China that we can ask, because the Koreas are right out. Even then those assholes are all off dealing with they're own problems. The rest of the States can't care less about us and the Canadian agents would probably try to hug Dagomon to death."

"Actually they did try that." Liam said, picking up one of the stray files laying around the room. "The report said that he responded 'rather poorly at the attempts of Canadian officers to pacify him.' Which I think means he beat the shit out of everyone and ran down here to kill people instead."

"Well. I'll be damned." Rikarde couldn't help but laugh as he read the files passed to him. "They actually tried that? Why didn't they just let the Quebecian task-force deal with him instead? Those idiots are crazy. Shadow Octopus would have at least limped off to lick his wounds for a couple months."

"No idea." Liam said. "At any rate, what are we going to do? I'm guessing counting on reinforcements isn't going to go well, and the idiots are still thinking bombs are the way to go."

"Hey, at least my punching out of Shadow Octopus did us some good if nothing else. The portal readings vanished at the exact moment I hit him, and took like an hour to come back. He's probably going to be pissed I so easily destroyed days of his work, no doubt." Rikarde sighed, running a hand through his hair. He had taken off his hat when they had gotten inside, revealing thick dark brown hair that was a shade darker than his impressive, curly beard. "Other than that, I'll have to keep trying to make calls and see if anyone can come help us. Even the Digital World. Until Magnus is back on his feet, that duty is mine for now. And if they try to drop the bomb, I say just knock it out of the sky before they can detonate it. It'll be better than letting them ruin the environment _and_ destroy San Fran with tidal waves made from the explosion."

"Well, good luck with that." Liam said. "I think I'm going to go crash. I need to rest up for tomorrow."

"Yeah, you go do that." Rikarde waved a hand. "Meanwhile, I'm up for probably an all-nighter. Gonna have to check up on that Cassi chick and make sure she isn't falling asleep, gonna have to make calls, gonna have to make sure Magnus isn't trying to escape his hospital bed, gonna have to make sure the numbnuts in the command center are doing their goddamn jobs... I'm gonna be busy. Best at least one of us gets proper rest. At least we'll have a few days 'til Dagomon is ready to invade."

"See you then." Liam left without a further word.

"So, what are we really going to do?" Came the deadpan voice of Dolce from his DIC.

"We're going to stabilize Ranamon's form." Liam said. "It's not going to be easy, so prepare for an all nighter."

"Right." Dolce responded.

* * *

><p>"What do you think he's really going to do?" Warren asked his partner as he and his brother climbed back on to his shoulders.<p>

Rikarde shrugged. "He's probably going to burn the midnight oil until he can't keep his eyes open anymore. He seemed tired earlier but I know that eating a good meal can fix that. He'll probably raid my coffee and tea stashes to get some more help, too. Anyway, we've got work to do."

* * *

><p>Rikarde rubbed his eyes tiredly, giving a yawn and stretch a second later. It was the early hours of the morning and he still had to deal with all of the shenanigans commanders had to take care of, and then some. The office wasn't his, nor was the chair or the computer, but he had access to everything Commander Magnus had been doing before Seadramon had arrived with his information. Of course no one was answering the emergency hales, it's not like the entire west coast was in danger or anything. It was like all of his outgoing calls to the other parts of the world were being purposefully blocked. Why were their calls being blocked when what was going on here was of the utmost importance?<p>

The Digital World was actually answering more than his own was, which was both relieving and maddening at the same time. He had gotten word from his acquaintances that they'd try to get on over to help, but working through the bureaucracy of their own world to open a portal to their exact location to send reinforcements was going to be like wading through a swamp full of snapping turtles, anacondas, alligators and electric eels - difficult, dangerous and most of all infuriating. Not to mention the power needed to pierce the veil between worlds to send a big enough contingent was a problem all its own.

So there was a good chance they might make it, while Rikarde also had to consider that they might not make it in time. Which was just perfect for their situation, really; there was a small candle of hope but it was constantly in danger of being blown out by the gale of darkness.

The stress had been aggravating his throat, drying it out far quicker than normal. He'd had almost constant cups of water, tea, soda, anything he could drink to try and satiate it, as well as his emergency supply of cough drops. It stopped the irritation for a while but then it would come back full force, and he tried to drown the coughs out with his hand to stop from disturbing his partners, sleeping on a pile of pillows set on the floor. Needing a break, he took a moment to glance at them and smiled softly. It was a picture of peace he rarely got to see anymore, what with them so busy, and he took the moment to savor it.

Klaxon alarms chose that moment to blare into his ears, making him wince and scaring his partners awake. "Perfect." He sighed, pulling himself out of his commander's comfortable chair. "What else could go wrong?"

* * *

><p>"Well, not bad." Liam said, breathing heavily. He and Dolce, along with Rana, were occupying a deserted alley in the wee hours of the morning. Thanks to the mass evacuation, there was little danger of muggers or murderers about. He had spent the night hammering principles into Ranamon and battling her with Dolce in Champion form in an attempt to stabilize the excitable Digimon. Progress was slow, but promising. "We'll have to break here. The sun's starting to come up. I need to find some soda."<p>

His communicator beeped, obviously trying to get his attention. "Yes, this is Liam." He said with a practiced ease, answering the call.

"Get your butt down here. We got a problem." Rikarde's voice responded, sounding far more terse than he usually was.

"Right." Liam said, ending the call. Dolce and Rana returned to the DIC quickly as he turned towards the DATS center. "Guess soda has to wait..."

* * *

><p>Rikarde was standing in the command center, arms crossed and tapping his right arm with the forefinger of his other hand. He looked extremely agitated when Liam arrived, though that was obviously because of the klaxon alarms going off as everyone in the center rushed around, yelling and looking at different consoles.<p>

"Bout time you got here." Rikarde told him. His partners were on the ground next to his feet, ready for combat.

"Situation?" Liam asked

With a wave of Rikarde's hand, the huge screen that showed a map of the area, standard in all DATS command centers, zoomed in on the bay. There were eleven blips moving in toward San Fransisco Bay, ten orange and one red, the red one in the lead. "Got some buggers heading in on us." He stated. "We think they are Digimon Dagomon are throwing at us to keep us distracted. I was gathering up everyone I could use to confront these guys. They're not slowing down, not like Seadramon did, so they're obviously looking for a fight."

"And you need me to get in there as well, I'm guessing?" Liam asked.

"If you would. You have both a flying and aquatic Digimon on hand, and I got two flyers as well. Maybe Seadramon will want to help out again as well, help earn his keep. Of course I'm gonna throw that Cassi chick out of her cozy bed so she can help, too. I got a couple others that'll help in repellin' 'em headin' in."

"Right then." Liam said. "You got any soda?"

Rikarde opened up his coat and pulled a small bottle of cherry coke which he then handed off to the other man - he didn't toss it, he didn't throw it, he handed it off gently like one would a smile child. "Get a dry throat easily; I carry around a bottle of water, soda and a bag of cough drops wherever I go." He supplied.

"Yeah well my supply ran dry on the plane over here." Liam said. "Evacuated cities don't often have stores open to buy things in."

"Yeah, they were probably raided first thing by fleeing civilians, looking to get ahead." Rikarde sighed, shaking his head. "We've had to have everything shipped in directly and handed out the past few weeks, but that's neither here nor there. We need to get ready, and I still need to get that Cassi chick and her annoying little shoulder angel. Meet you out near the bay."

"Got it." Liam nodded.

* * *

><p>Cassi yawned and rubbed her eyes, glasses held in one hand while she did so. She and Azrael had been awakened oh so rudely (okay, only she had, because Azrael was a light sleeper and usually floated up near the ceiling when he slept) by being shoved out of bed not too long ago, and here she was in the nippy bayside morning with some jerks she knew nothing about, alongside her own two jerks. She and Rikarde had been the last to join the group at where the battle was going to take place, lying in wait so they could ambush their soon-to-be opponents.<p>

The only one among these jokers she recognized that weren't Liam or Rikarde was the man whom had informed them about the attack on Magnus, the guy who was the same rank Rikarde was. Now that she had a chance to look at him instead of rushing too and fro, she noticed he wore all black and had jet black hair and exceedingly pale skin. Fluttering by his side were two Demi Devimon, who were giggling 'Pico Pico!' at each other in the most obnoxious way she ever imagined. There was another girl there, a blond wearing black lipstick and lavender clothes that had an Alraumon dancing around her cheekily. A final one was a fiery haired lad with an Agumon by his side, who was currently playing Rock Paper Scissors with him. The Agumon was winning.

There were some other Tamers there but they were just bridge crew. She was sure they had good Digimon of their own, but they were the generic type of bridge crew that wore the same uniform and had the standard short hair style bridge crew usually had.

"Get a good breath, that's the coastal air for you." Liam said with a smile. "Though things are going to get really rough soon, from the looks of it. All the Ebidramon are huge, and their leader even more so."

Rikarde nodded. "Biggest we've seen yet, and the ones that took out Hawaii and attacked Australia were the biggest we'd recorded until these guys. It's gonna be rough, people, I won't lie. But you're the best of the best at this here branch, and I know with all of us working together we'll drive this force back to their master with their tails between their legs!" The small group let out a cheer. "Now, let's teach these assholes they don't mess with us California folk!"

After a minute of waiting, which Cassi spent by fiddling with her glasses, the water suddenly broke as ten huge red forms flew from it in a V-formation. Crashing to the ground were several giant red lobster like creatures with dragon-like faces, all of whom glared around the area, looking for any signs of life. Their eyes wandered worrying over their hiding spots but didn't seem to catch either Tamer or Digimon. There was another splash as the last of the battle group, a huge peach colored sea scorpian-like creature, burst from the bay as well. It had many blades acting as its legs and feelers, and an even larger one acted as the stinger on the end of its tail. It had two sets of eyes, bug-like stalks that came off of its forehead and two blue ones that glared at the world much like its subordinates.

"Very well, men," He began, his voice oddly warbling like he was still under the water. "You heard master Dagomon - we hit these land dwellers hard in all of their supply centers, then we hit their power centers, and finally all their broadcast towers so they can't get any word out. Sow enough chaos so they're ripe for the reapin'. After all is done, we'll head back to the water and join back up with the true vanguard that'll be here in the morrow."

"Ranamon, Realize!" Liam muttered, and from his device sprung the sprightly water user.

"Yeah yeah here I am!" She said, excitedly.

"You and Seadramon take the leader. We'll handle the rest once they're disorganized." He said.

"Righty-o! Is Seadraboy ready?"

"Bout as I can be, weird lady." Seadramon replied quietly from the current commander's DIC.

"Alright guys, on my count, we'll attack and then those of us that can will Digivolve our partners." Rikarde held up his hand as the Digimon they spied upon began to organize themselves, counting down three to one on his fingers. He pointed his DIC out. "Seadramon, Realize!"

"Oh yeah!" The large serpent roared as he materialized, instantly flying out and slamming into the surprised Scorpiomon with a full on tackle that sent them flying into the bay. Ranamon raced out after him a few seconds later, swan-diving gracefully into the cool waters.

Before the Ebidramon could react, they were instantly beset upon by everyone else. The two Demi Devimon took on one, throwing syringes at it, the Agumon blasted another one with a fireball, the Alraumon began to whip another in the face with extended whip-like fingers, a Ryudamon shot swords at another alongside a Dorumon that spat cannon balls on its nearby friend, and finally a Kotemon began to beat one upside the head with its kendo sword.

"There are still two Ebidramon not covered. Lucemon and Cassie, take one. Dolce will back you up." Liam ordered.

"As much as I don't want to." Witchmon intoned.

"Rikarde, can the insect brothers take the last Ebidramon?"

"More than able, they have definite type advantage there." Rikarde said, his voice tinted by the eager grin on his face as his fist glowed with the two-toned light of his Soul. "Give 'em hell, guys."

Cassi and Azrael glanced at each other, nodded, then Azrael dove in and gave his Ebidramon target a harsh kick that separated him from the others. The other Digimon were luring all the Ebidramon away from their fellows. Once they had managed sufficient distance their Tamers Digivolved them. Azrael saw the DemiDevimons become a Devidramon and a Dinohumon, the Agumon became a Greymon, the Alraumon became a Red Vegimon, the Dorumon a Raptordramon, the Ryudamon a Ginryumon and finally the Kotemon became a Gladimon. Some of them had an easier time fighting the giant red lobster dragons while others were obviously struggling, but he knew those that finished up were going to go and help their comrade.

Not to mention the Insect Bros. were tearing into their Ebidramon. He had to admit, their Viral ruthlessness when it came to their attacks would have normally been horrifying to watch, even as they joked and argued over it.

He didn't have time to focus on them, however. Azrael frowned down at his Ebidramon opponent, who was flopped onto his back and screeching something unholy while his legs wiggled uselessly in the air, claws flying everywhere as it tried to right itself. Honestly, it sounded like a pig being slaughtered.

Almost casually he threw a planet Venus shaped fireball at it. The fireball hit the ground just behind it and sent it flying again, this time right back at him. It managed to ready its claws as it flew at him, but he caught them before they had a chance to latch on. The Ebidramon had the sense to look scared when it realized that no matter how much it tried it could not move its arms, and its pincers repeatedly snapped uselessly; his hands were nowhere near where they needed to be to snap on the Lucemon's neck.

He smiled at the fear on its face. "Hi." Azrael said menacingly before planting his feet on its face and beginning to sloooowly push with them, pulling its arms taunt.

With a horrible ripping noise, he pulled its arms completely off with a burst of golden data. The lobster dragon _screamed_ as it fell back to the earth, writhing all the way.

The battle stopped for a moment, everyone watching the Ebidramon flail about in shock as the claws still in Azrael's grasp slowly vanished from the wounds up.

"Whoa," The Greymon balked.

"I yield!" The Ebidramon Greymon was fighting cried out suddenly, throwing his pincers into the air in surrender.

"You traitor!" One of his comrades roared at him.

"Call me what you want, I ain't ending up like _him_!" The turncoat waggled his arms in the injured lobster-dragon's direction.

The battle resumed, though Greymon kept a close eye on his new prisoner.

Cassi winced. "I knew I forgot something." She muttered to herself. "I'm gonna need to turn that limiter back on after this."

Warren and Leonard seemed to be fighting Scorpiomon's second in command, because he was putting on a better fight. However Ebidramon had no long ranged attack, which Warren had long since learned as it swiped at him when he made passes with his Spiking Finish trying to impale it. He and his brother just floated out of range and began to shoot Moon Shooters and Brown Stingers at the Ebidramon, which he defended by covering his face with his arms. His hard red carapace was protecting him nicely, but it was only a matter of time until they finally broke through.

Suddenly the two were pounced upon by other Ebidramon, fiery energy surrounding them that exploded violently as soon as they landed on the ground. Both Raptordramon and Ginryumon were down for the count, and it seemed that Warren and Leonard were going to join them as the two didn't get up after that. Though that could have been because they were pinned down by huge lobster dragons that had their pincers wrapped around their throats.

"That's not looking good." Dolce said to Cassie, pointing out the two squashed bugs. "Should angelboy do something about that?"

"If he notices, but I think he's having too much fun." Cassi grimaced at the relish her little angel boy continued to torment his own opponent. That poor Ebidramon, his carapace had several punctures to go along with his torn off arms. "I don't think anything outside a wreaking ball will catch his attention right about now."

"I could arrange that." Dolce said with a wave of her hand.

The Lucemon would have continued inflicting the pain on his opponent if, at that moment, a wreaking ball hadn't slammed into him and crashed him into the nearby warehouse. He flew from the wreckage, completely livid, and landed right in front of Dolce and grabbing her collar in his hand, the other poised to punch her in the face.

"Why," He snarled, his eyes glowing harshly in his fury.

"That... actually wasn't me. Though I was planning on it." She answered in a monotone. "Looks like another group lost to their Ebidramon."

"The hell are you doing, then?" He said after a moment, letting her go. "They need to be torn apart."

Azrael rose into the air until he could see the entire battle field. He saw that Gladimon had been taken down as well after he'd been joined by the one freed up from fighting the Insect Bros., and the Ebidramon that it had been fighting had teamed up on Red Veggiemon. They were beating him down, though not soundly - the red pepper Digimon was giving them a run for their money, but it wasn't long before he were taken down as well. He gave a growl when he saw them head over and immediately take down Devidramon and Dinohumon in the same way. It was amazing how fast those buggers moved, and their Lobster Step attacks were apparently quite powerful.

It had all happened too fast for him to go down and help each Digimon turn, but when they began to menace Greymon and his charge he found his opening. The Ebidramon Greymon was protecting looked terrified, especially as his previous fellows snapped their claws threateningly in his direction.

"Divine Feat." Azrael said, glowing the same light as his eyes before rocketing downward.

He slammed down on an Ebidramon that had just began to jump at Greymon and crushed its head deeply into the ground. The other Ebidramon shied away as they saw him, their eyes widening in fear. Azrael gave a snarl as he radiated with power, knocking them all away with a holy shockwave. The poor Ebidramon he landed on was smashed deeper into the road, and it most certainly couldn't try and get out of its prison now.

"Acha, he really is a walking destructo ultimate." Dolce said in a monotone, making her statement much less impressed sounding.

"Is your emotion center just broken or something?" Cassi asked, looking at her oddly.

"I think it's fine." Dolce said, equally as flat.

Lucemon uppercutted another Ebidramon straight into the air and let it fly, already moving on to the next. He gave it a holy powered back handed slap that sent it careening into a wall. He blasted another at point blank range with a Jupiter colored fireball when it tried to Lobster Step him, sending the poor thing spiraling away into a metal beam. It slumped over the beam, unconscious. He roared a challenge to those that were left, his power glowing like a white sun around him.

"I'm glad I gave up when I did." Greymon's prisoner gulped, wide eyed.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Dolce said in her deadpan voice. One might think this was because she was watching Lucemon. This was untrue. She was speaking to the Puroromon who had just flopped down onto her hat.

The last one besides the leader looked between Lucemon and his boss for a second before deciding, "Screw this!" and jumped back into the water.

"Filthy coward!" The lead Ebidramon roared, before sending Azrael a harsh glare. "Not gonna be as easy as these weakling," He assured the Lucemon, before spitting a scalding, high pressure blast of water that caught Azrael off guard. It sent him blasting back through a building and into another, which he immediately flew out of and began to rain fireballs down on the lobster dragon.

It proved to still be as fast as it had been when fighting Leonard and Warren, rushing out of the blast radius of each time and somehow making its way the side of a building. Stupid thing was breaking the laws of physics.

It jumped off as soon as it matched his height and slammed down him, its body wreathed in the fiery energy that was its Lobster Step. Azrael tried to blast him off, but this Ebidramon had a stronger carapace than his fellows, as the blue aura around it was feeding off of his white one and was dragging him down to the ground with meteoric forces.

As soon as they met the road they exploded violently, sending up a huge cloud of smoke and dust that obscured them from sight. When it cleared... Most of Azrael's toga was destroyed, and he laid there burned, broken and worst of all, unconscious.

Ebidramon snarled and grabbed his neck and legs in its pincers and lifted him up, slowly beginning to bend the angel boy's body at the back.

Two things ran through Cassi's mind. The first was "That little liar!" at the sight of his tattered clothes, or rather what they revealed. The next one was "BABU NOOOOOOOO!"

"Umm... is he seriously unconscious?" Dolce asked.

Puroromon buzzed merrily on Dolce's head, not at all seeming to worry about the present state of affairs which the ladies now found themselves in.

"Goddamnit," Rikarde was snarling, unlike the rest of the Cali Agents plus Cassi. The defeat of Azrael was hitting their remaining morale, and Rikarde was actually having to hold back the violet haired girl to keep her from running out to try and help her partner. "Hey, Lady Witch!" He snapped at the woman Digimon. "Stop standing there and do something! Go help my partners or something!"

"If only it were so easy." Dolce said staring back. At the moment she was barely able to keep her champion form. It seemed Rana's fight was still going on, and that meant Liam's DigiSoul was too drained to give her the boost she needed.

Liam growled to himself. For someone with touted abilities, he sure had found himself in pinches too often lately. It was probably too much to ask more of himself so quickly. "Come on, I'm an actor. I memorize routines and lines within a month to put on a show! You've got to have more than this. Come on!" His shout momentarily surprised the other tamers and a moment later he slammed his hand onto his Digivice. For a moment, nothing happened, but then an emerald glow emitted from it, surrounding them all.

Dolce felt her powers return, and her broomstick materialized under her feet. "Looks like I'll be helping after all."

Puroromon, surrounded by that same strange glow, let out a sudden buzz as a familiar light surrounded her. The baby-like Digimon suddenly changed, growing a stinger, but keeping its large baby-doll eyes. "Fanbeemon is here!" The Digimon cried triumphantly, speaking for the first time.

"Huh." Rikarde and a few others said in unison. Cassi was taking this distraction to fight harder against Rikarde, trying to get to her 'Babu'.

"Well, glad to see you're doing better now, but can you please go help Warren and Leonard!?" Rikarde asked, grabbing the slightly taller girl in a headlock. She continued to flail about impotently. "We need to save that little angel boy from getting his back broken!"

Azrael had woken up at this point, but as strong as he was all he could do was try and keep the lobster dragon from breaking his back by straining himself. The claws were far too strong to break out of by himself.

"Yes yes, impatience only gets you killed." Dolce said.

Moments later however, Fanbeemon shot past her screaming "mineminemineminemine!" and smashed headfirst into one of the Ebidramon holding down the insect brothers, incidentally having chose the one on Warren, which to everyone's shock and amazement tipped it over. Dolce came down upon it, and a furious slash of wind halved the Ebidramon, who gave out a strangled cry. However, instead if vanishing his body fell to the ground. "That's weird." Dolce intoned, before nodding at the bug brothers. "You two still alive?"

Warren jumped up off the street and raced down at the other Ebidramon that had been on his brother and slammed one of his spikes into its throat. It spasmed for a moment but flopped uselessly onto the ground after that.

"Far as I knew, they weren't cutting off our air, just stopping us from moving." Leonard supplied, before taking another look at Fanbeemon. "Little Bee! You grew up!"

"Less talking more stabbing!" Warren raced past again, b-lining right for the lead Ebidramon. With a quick slice one of its arms was lopped off at what would have been the eblow on a human by the bugman's spike. It let out a scream of rage and surprise as it stumbled away. Azrael forced the other claw open, and they both flew away from the enraged crustacean.

Dolce meanwhile trapped an Ebidramon that attempted a surprise attack from the ocean with her Aquary Pressure, and Fanbeemon smashed into the Ebidramon in midair, with a shout of "Gear Stinger!" The three blows penetrated the Ebidramon's soft underside, and he fell to the ground.

"Good work little one." Dolce said, patting Fanbeemon on the head.

"I am fury!" She buzzed happily back.

The Ebidramon that Lucemon had knocked out were beginning to stir, so Azrael blasted one with a full on Grand Cross, and Leonard and Warren took out another by pumping it full of Brown Stingers and Moon Shooters.

On their side the unconscious Digimon that had been taken out by the Ebidramon squad before were beginning to stir. The lead Ebidramon now had an entire group of Digimon glaring down at him. Despite the pain, he didn't seem all that bothered by them.

"I think now would be about the right time to give up like your ex-buddy, buddy." Leonard stated, sounding rather authoritative.

* * *

><p>In a huge dark fortress that had appeared over night on Alcatraz Island so many months ago, the dark form of Dagomon brooded over the slowly spinning form of the newly remade beginnings of his portal. That blasted Tamer had knocked him unconscious when he had, admittedly, miscalculated enough to allow them a shot at him. He hadn't been aware that someone whom had apparently spent time with that blasted Doctor worked in the general area. His little 'ally' had been rather amused with his anger and disbelief.<p>

His gaze into the portal wasn't only to just watch it, however. He was watching the battle through it, and had seen how it went. He snarled with disgust at seeing them all lose so badly, but after a moment calmed himself and began to smile smugly. While he could have just turned them all to Raremon and have been done with it, he thought that maybe, this time he could use the fact that their most powerful warriors were all out there just ripe for the reaping.

As he began to finger his most prized possession, one given to him by his Lord that he had promised to use only when he truly needed it, he purred as evil ideas ran through his head. "**No. I don't think they will.**" He responded to Leonard's statement, even if the giant bee couldn't hear him at this time. A deep chuckle came from his throat as his eyes glowed red and his form became encapsulated by shadow.

* * *

><p><strong>After note: Welp. I seem to have run out of things to talk about in notes. Kind of happens when people either say nothing or there's nothing for me to snark at. Or it could be due to me being tired as I upload this as a doc, who knows. Either way I may just cut out notes entirely until I have something I can snark at going on. Battles are a little too serious for that.<strong>

**Speaking of, I reaffirm my point on why I like Digimon so much - a bunch of giant lobsters and a giant anomalocaris with blades for legs and a stinger against a ragtag group of two giant insects, an angel, a witch, a frog-lady sprite thing, a tiny giant bee, a giant habanero, two dinosaurs, a dragon wearing samurai armor, a dragon that looks like the devil, a dinosaur warrior man and a trashcan knight. If this fight scene were in anything else you'd think it was made on drugs. It's just effing glorious, man.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 6: The Seaside Battle part 2<span>**

* * *

><p>Seadramon broke off of Scorpiomon soon after they entered the water and backed off, blocking any direct retaliatory strikes by breathing cold breath into the water and making a wall of ice. Seadramon knew Ranamon would be right behind him and hoped she could take the heat off him; the odds for a single Champion facing an experienced Ultimate were never good.<p>

"Whipping Waves!" Ranamon cried out, using her arms to whip the water around her, turning them into dangerous rope-like entities that stood out from the normal water, smacking Anomalocarimon across the face and stopping his assault.

"Oi, what you thinking you doing Frog Lady?" The sea scorpion with a love of blades grunted as the whips lashed against his carapace again and again. "That ain't no attack to be using against another Aquan! This is! Stinger Surprise!"

Crossing its two bladed forelimbs together, it slashed them out at the same time and created a pressurized cresent shaped blast of air that traveled through the water at the other Ultimate, who gracefully swam out of the way of it.

"Ice Arrows!" Seadramon added in, blasting a barrage of icy arrows from his mouth at the large peach colored monster.

"Sand Shower!" Scorpiomon countered, blasting a barrage of sand bullets that lost their form after colliding with the arrows. It made them detonate, but it was clearly an attack not meant for underwater combat as the bullets broke apart so easily. They'd have most likely blasted through Seadramon's attack otherwise.

"Tut tut." Rana said, winking at Scorpiomon as she swam circles around him. "My waves are more than enough, but if you really want it, Dark Vapor." She shot a dark purple cloud straight into the angry Ultimate's face.

"What the hell do you thi- GAK!" The sea scorpion gagged, its eyes going wide as it began to cough and thrash about. Ranamon was able to get away the flailing appendages with only a shallow cut along her arm to show for it, thankfully.

Scorpiomon wasn't so lucky, becoming a little green around the gills as he swam out of the dark cloud gulping the clean salt water greedily.

"The hell you do to him, weird lady?" Seadramon questioned, staring at their floundering opponent.

"Poison." She answered. "Have to be careful with it underwater, but I made sure he was the only one to breathe it in."

"Stinger Surprise!" Came Anomalocarimon's cry, and Seadramon's eyes widened when he saw the attack coming through the cloud – dispersing it into the ocean.

"Move it!" He rammed into her and dove them both out of the way of the crossed crescent shaped attack – missing them by milimeters.

Scorpiomon chased after them, the blades on its sides and on his tail glowing sharply. "Tail Blade!"

"Got any more bright ideas?" Seadramon asked, trying desperately to keep them ahead of it this time. He was thankful for small miracles; the poison in the Ultimate's system was keeping him from going full speed and catching up to them. He would have most likely gutted the two of them by now if it wasn't for the Dark Vapor attack.

"We get to play until the little monster can't even draw breath." Ranamon said, not appearing worried in the slightest. "He won't last long at the rate he's going, otherwise I'd try to spare him."

"How fast does it act? Because I don't know how long I have it in me to outrun this joker, whether he be sick or not!" Indeed, Scorpiomon seemed to be gaining on them. Whether from Seadramon wearing himself out or the sea scorpion just pushing through with determination, Seadramon himself couldn't tell.

"Well, if that's the case," Ranamon sniffed before pushing off Seadramon head and swimming back the way they came. Ranamon tapped Scorpiomon's head with her feet. It surprised him, to be sure, making him stop all forward momentum; but he didn't seem particularly hurt, his carapace absorbing the blow. Ranamon began to rain punches and kicks upon him, dodging away only when he came to his senses and began to swipe back at her with his blades.

As quick as she was, she wasn't hurting him, his armored skeleton preventing any damage. As strong and deadly as he was, he wasn't hurting her, as she was too fast. The only thing Ranamon had on him at this point was the Dark Vapor she'd sprayed in his face, but even that would take time and she didn't know if she had it. Seadramon wasn't even a factor right now, and if she weren't so busy she'd have told him to go back to the fight with the Ebidramon.

Then, as she went in to give him another punch upon the top of his head between his insectoid eyes, a green glow surrounded her. There was a titanic sound from the impact, and Scorpiomon was sent rolling back with a cry of pain, a huge crack forming in his carapace.

At first she was shocked, but then she gave a very feral looking smile as her eyes glowed in the murk around them. "Now that's what I'm talking about!" She all but cooed, then darted forward to continue her barrage, feeling her spirit renewed.

Scorpiomon was now laying face first on the sea floor, his breathing labored from the poisonous cloud he had inhaled earlier. What was worse was how after that strange glow had surrounded Ranamon, she had proceeded to beat the ever loving daylight out of him, not even bothering to manipulate the water around them and simply bashing his face continuously with punches and kicks. Eventually she had hit him so hard he found himself rocketing out of the water, landing face first on land where he now lay, eying the blue predator as she approached him once more.

"I think that puts Dagomon down a small attack force." Ranamon said, turning and flashing the peace sign at Seadramon, whose face was currently one with a jaw so low it could've been dislocated.

"Glad to see you've decided to join us." Warren noted from a couple yards away. Apparently Scorpiomon's pummeling had brought him back all the way over to the rest of the team. The Ebidramon squad was dealt with, with only the one who had given up and the lead one conscious. The lead Ebidramon was currently surrounded on all sides, and his jaw was on the floor like Seadramon's for almost the same reason. "We were just negotiating these guys surrender." He motioned with his head at the gobsmacked lobster dragon. "This guy didn't want to give up with their boss still fighting you, but since you went and beat him up..."

"Then he should be more than happy to submit, right?" Ranamon said, smiling over at the Leader Ebidramon, who could only see the menacing figure standing over his boss with a blade of water poised over the unconscious Digimon's head.

"**NO.**" A voice before boomed as the world exploded into a darker shade as green lightning danced over the bay. "**I DON'T THINK HE WILL BE.**"

"Oh for the love of God not again!" Rikarde's enraged cry was answered by a dark laugh as the giant form of Shadow Octopus formed a ways out into the bay - this time well out of the way of any DigiSoul lasso ranges.

"_**GOD**_** HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.**" The form boomed, seeming to grin at them - but since it was a shadow it was hard to see.

"L-Lord Dagomon!" The lead Ebidramon and the prisoner both cried, one relieved and one fearful. "My Lord, we really need your help! These humans were trickier than we thought they were!" The lead one continued.

"**SUCH IS THE WAY OF HUMANS. THEY KNOW NOTHING BETTER THAN TO FIGHT, EVEN WHEN THEIR DOOM APPROACHES.**" The Shadow Octopus agreed.

"You know, if he really wants to lose, he sure is giving us plenty of chances to beat him." Liam said. However his panting gave away the fact that his DigiSoul was well and truly drained, in spite of his newest breakthrough. Likely every tamer there was suffering from the same problem, the Ebidramon fight had drug on for a long time, and all the Digimon aside from Dolce and Ranamon had taken damage.

"**OH? IS THAT SO? THEN I GUESS I MUST MAKE THIS QUICK, LEST YOU INSECTS DECIDE TO PULL ANOTHER FAST ONE.**" With a sneer, the red eyed specter snatched out every single Ebidramon except the one Greymon protected; he snagged the tendril when it tried and bit it off, though he coughed it out afterward. Even Anomalocarimon was taken from under Ranamon.

"My Lord!" The Lead Ebidramon squirmed in his master's grasp, gasping.

"**NOW NOW, MY SOLDIER. DON'T WORRY; YOUR SACRIFICE WILL ALL BE HONORED AMONG MY ARMY.**" Shadow Octopus rumbled as its many tendrils parted to bring out something that had the Tamers balking. It was entirely black except for golden teeth that covered it, some even set so close together it looked like a fanged mouth on the front. It was shaped vaguely like their own DICs, but its body was too broad at the top.

"What the devil!?" Rikarde couldn't help but bark, his eyes wide.

The mouth of the device opened and showed a sickly, dark glowing interior that flashed with violet light. Light that all surrounded the Ebidramon and Anomalocarimon.

The Ebidramon and Scorpiomon must have woken up, because horrid screams came from them as they were consumed by the light, even as Shadow Octopus laughed boomingly and disappeared. The lights hovered in the air for a moment before suddenly colliding together with a tremendous crash, lowering down to hover over the water.

Out of the light came the most disgusting creature the group had ever seen. It was some sort of unholy mishmash of parts from both the Ebidramon and Scorpiomon. It had an Ebidramon's head where Ranamon had cracked Scorpiomon's carapace, the eye stalks and eyes missing from the giant sea scorpion's sockets. Ebidramon's claws sat on the end of Scorpiomon's arms, only bigger and far more evil looking. Its underside was teaming with Ebidramon's legs, Scorpiomon's blades sticking steadfastly out from its sides now. It had an Ebidramon tail, the original stinger tail now coming directly out from the horrifying creature's back. To finish, it was also two times bigger than Anomalicarimon had been.

"Ebidramon: Scorpio Mode!" The new, unwieldy creature screeched.

"That's attractive," The girl with that had the Red Vegimon looked distinctly sick.

"Tch." Liam growled. "I knew it was possible for Digimon to fuse, but to force a fusion like that... what kind of power does Dagomon have to do that... And how far reaching is it?" He muttered, before clenching his fist. "Guess we're about to have a hell of a fight on our hands..."

"Less talking more ass kicking!" Rikarde growled, summoning up another fist of DigiSoul - though his two-toned Soul was beginning to cover the rest of his body as well. "We can speculate later; in the mean time we have one ugly mother hubbard to take down!"

"I might need to take off more of Azzy's limiters to face that thing," Cassi spoke up from where she was both fretting over her partner's state and smacking him over the head for being such a liar pants.

"Group up." Liam said, and Dolce landed right next to him, Ranamon sprung up to join them as Fanbeemon buzzed around his head. "You all need to coordinate with Rikarde's Digimon to distract and hit where you can. We'll have to rely on Azreal's limiters and hope he can keep control. Until that's ready fight with everything you have, got it?"

"You all, protect the prisoner and make sure nothing gets through to the rest of us." Rikarde told the other Digimon, whom along with their humans nodded reluctantly. "My Digimon are the freshest while you all were beat up a bit. Leave this to us; me and these idiots are being put on the same team for a reason."

Rikarde's Digimon lined up, both of them looking rather eager to get this party started.

Dolce flew just above the two, Fanbeemon settled on her hat like an angry decoration, and Ranamon walked up next to the two jauntily, looking up at their opponent with a whistle. "Yanno, I think the poison mist that boss absorbed might've transferred into their new form. If we hold it off for a couple minutes it might just keel over on its own."

"Good news for an otherwise sucky situation." Warren nodded. "So hold him off 'til he dies. Got it."

"We get to fight a basically Ultimate level dude as Champions!" Leonard grinned excitedly. Or, it seemed like he was grinning. With his odd beak, it was hard to tell. "Been a while since we had to do that. Hope it'll go better than last time~"

With that, the Insect Bros rushed out and split off just as they were about to crash into Ebidramon SM. For some reason the monster had just been sitting there and letting them talk; for all it made them some sort unholy abomination, the fusion process obviously did not increase its intelligence. In fact, it might have made it dumber, as it just swiped at the two as they passed.

"Moon Shooter!" Warren called out as he blasted a barrage of spikes from one of his arm launchers.

"Poison Powder!" Leonard called, a glittering powder being left behind to wash over the aquan Digimon as he flew over it. Now the stupid thing was doubly poisoned, good job guys.

"Baluluna Gale!" Dolce cried, a slice of wind smashing into the beast, who seemed unaffected.

"88 call!" Fanbeemon buzzed excitedly, and to everyone's interest and slight horror Fanbeemon began to appear from the sky, dive-bombing the Ebidramon in random explosions of color with an incessant buzzing sound.

"Punch!" Ranamon said pleasantly, smashing her glowing fist into the monstrosity, and actually knocking it back two paces. As an Ultimate level Digimon, she could use her borrowed DigiSoul much more efficiently than the other Digimon.

"Stinger Neptune!" Ebidramon cried out and swiped its claws, throwing crescent shaped blasts of energy all around the area. The Digimon began to dodge them, some jumping or flew and the ones not participating began to lead the humans away from the fight. The blasts were tearing apart the road and warehouses they met.

"Cassie, Azreal, what's your status?" Liam shouted. "Can he even remove the seal without the risk of going crazy? We need to know now before the Digimon get worn out!"

"It'd just take a push of a button but he's being a pansy about it again!" Cassi called back.

"ONE WAS ENOUGH! NO MORE!" Azrael shouted a bit too loudly.

"I'm probably going to take them all off when that army gets here anyway! Stop arguing about it."

"IT'LL BE YOUR OWN FUNERAL!"

"Fine, switch to plan B!" Liam shouted at Rikarde. "Focus on long range assault, keep our Digimon from taking damage or getting worn out! The combination of poison and long range should take it down!"

"Gotcha! I'll even bump things up a notch!" Rikarde's DigiSoul flared up a notch. "Hey boys! First one who says 'Aye' gets to Digivolve to Ultimate!"

"_Aye sir_!" Leonard immediately cried.

"Aye- Damnit!" Warren was just a second too late.

"Alright Leo, let's go!" Rikarde lifted his hand into the air and slammed it down into the DIC's top port, and his aura of Soul was immediately absorbed into the device. "DNA Full Charge!"

A two-toned beam flew from the screen of the Digivice and collided with Leonard's figure, and clouded him from sight in bright light.

"Flymon, Digivolve too~!" He called out excitedly as he began to change. His exo-skeleton changed color, going from yellow and blue with violet markings to a mottled black and green, like his brother's. His two sets of front limbs flashed, one set gaining flesh and reptilian scales, along with his abdominal area if he were humanoid. The other set became something like his brother's, complete with the spike launchers. His throax became a scaled tail. And finally, his face grew a mask like his brother's, complete with red eyes and a red mane of hair sprouting from behind it. His wings, becoming delicate and dragonfly-like, again much like his brother's, buzzed loudly as they began to move at break neck speeds and he threw himself into the air, an aura of predatory intent coming from him, so unlike before.

"Dinobeemon!" The new Digimon called out in a deeper, more dangerous sounding voice. He began to buzz his wings even more loudly, and the sound waves from them became visible. "Irritant Buzz!"

Ebidramon SM screamed as the noise reverberated in its skull, and it began to throw around Stinger Neptunes like crazy, trying to hit anything if only to make the pain stop.

The tiny Fanbeemon's continued to fall from the sky, preventing any blow from reaching more than a couple feet outward. Dolce and Ranamon had retreated as the monster rampaged, letting Leonard take the stage. Liam's habits in acting seemed to rub off on his Digimon rather quickly.

Leonard raced in was he buzzed incessantly into Ebidramon's ears. Seeing him, the abomination threw a claw at him only for it to pass right through the weird bugdragon hybrid. It looked honestly confused as its blow never connected with its target.

"Too slow!" Leonard roared from the other side and bashed it in the head with both of his right arms, following it up with consecutive blows from both of his left arms. After that the pummeling began, raining fists and sound waves down on the rapidly weakening Digimon. A final blow to the chin had the creature wheeling away, where it crashed into a warehouse - sending dust flying into the air as it collapsed on top of the thing.

He immediately darted away when a Stinger Neptune flew out at him, and from the wreckage came the monster that fired it. It let out a loud roar, defiantly glaring at its opponent. It was breathing hard, however, and it seemed to be sweating some foul smelling liquid; most likely the result of the poison both Leonard and Ranamon heaped on it.

Dinobeemon darted in again, buzzing away in an effort to keep up the pain. Ebidramon roared and exploded into blue fire, the blades on its sides whirring like a saw. "Lobster Blade!" It roared, and began to _fly_. It hovered like a helicoptor for a moment before charging back at Leonard.

He balked for a moment before darting to the side and letting it past, barely avoiding the blue fire and blades. He grabbed the stinger when it tried to strike him as Ebidramon SM passed by, and used it to toss the monster back into the ground. It landed in a crater, but it didn't even stumble as it blasted right back out of it.

"Man, what does it take to keep you down?" The bugdragon growled out, much like his brother did the day before. "Just lay down and die already! You aren't even fun to fight!"

Ebidramon SM just roared.

"Your Ultimate formed friend is pretty strong." Liam whistled. "I've never understood why they get exponentially stronger in each new form. Pretty sure Mordin told me once, but his stop motion science is hard to understand unless you're... you know, him."

"Yeah, he's stronger, but he's not even hurting it." Rikarde was actually sweating a little for once, gritting his teeth. His words surprised the three still hanging around him. "The only damage its taking is from the poison, but that'll take a few minutes to take it out. At this rate, Leonard is only going to be making himself tired."

"Should I let Ranamon in then?" Liam asked. "Dolce can also throw some more long range stuff its way; I was just trying to save power in case Dagomon attacks." He glanced up. "Looks like the jerk just plans to watch though."

"If Leonard isn't hurting it, I don't think Rana would be able to help much else unless she wants to try getting it triply poisoned." Rikarde grimaced. "Seriously, this thing's power is unreal. Its Mega Level durability just by fusing one Ultimate with nine Champions. If this were a fused Digivolution it should not be this strong!"

To prove that point, Leonard had thrown it into another building, which collapsed on it. Ebidramon SM just flew back out of the wreckage, screaming.

"At least he hasn't been injured, yet," Liam said, punctuating himself before he jinxed it. Actors were a superstitious lot, after all.

Well just great, now it had to happen.

And happen it did; just as Leonard was about to dodge another pass, it suddenly stopped and pointed directly at him.

"Sand Shower!" It roared triumphantly, surprising the bugdragon with a barrage of sand bullets that flew with insane speed to impact his body. He tried blocking himself by curling up with his arms in front of his face, but Leonard's guard was battered down and broken with a "Stinger Neptume!"

The attack struck him and sent him flying down to land harshly on the road, where the creature landed on him and grabbed at him with its pincers. Leonard managed to struggle away, cursing all the while.

The next moment Ranamon had stepped in, delivering a powerful blow to push the creature back, and helping Leonard pull back as well. "Boss, we aren't goin' ta get any info outta this guy." Rana said to Liam. "It's best if I cap 'im for ya."

"Why are you changing your accent?" Liam asked, but received no response as Ranamon laughed like a demented burglar who had just learned how to use a gun, water springing up from the ocean and surrounding her.

Ebidramon SM charged at her without even waiting to stand back up fully, stumbling upright and gaining speed quickly on its many legs.

"Say 'ello to my little friends!' Ranamon shouted, slashing out once more at the Ebidramon, taking it's stumbling legs back to the ground with the whipping waves.

"No seriously, why the accent." Liam said, still trying to catch up to the current state of affairs.

"Stop focusing on the accent, dude," Rikarde grunted. Leonard was standing, perhaps a little shakily, and began to buzz his wings again. Ebidramon roared in annoyance and pain before getting up once more.

"Sand Shower!" It cried again, shooting a multitude of bullets at the duo. Leonard avoided it by flying into the air again, but he was not quite as fast as he had been.

Rana used her water whips to turn the sand into much less useful wet sand, and it fell in heaps onto the ground, not leaving a scratch on the blue fighter as she continued to whip away at the screaming ultimate, saying weird catch phrases all the while.

Ebidramon roared and was about to try charging her again until it noticed the humans. It paused for a moment, gears visibly grinding in its head, before it realized that they were the source of these other Digimons' power. Take them out and the Digimon were as good as doomed.

It charged screaming in their direction after that moment passed, completely blowing through the whips Ranamon was throwing in his direction.

"Shit!" Rikarde cursed, powering up a collection of DigiSoul into his hand. It was noticeably smaller since he'd used so much already. "This probably won't end well, so before we get run over I just wanted to tell you bastards that I never liked you, but I always wished I could've."

"We just met!" Cassi replied quickly, pulling out the inhibitor's remote control from her pocket no matter her partner's protests.

Nothing was stopping him. Not Ranamon's whips which were helped out in part by Dolce, nor little Fanbeemon's attempts at using 88 Call. He just ignored the water and plowed through the exploding bees. Leonard tried to dive in front of him but he was plowed through and trampled. Warren shooting Moon Shooters at his legs did nothing, they bounced right off. Not even Azrael's fireballs were stopping him, and he was arguably the most powerful besides the current Ultimates.

As Liam prepared to jump out of the way with Cassi, and Rikarde prepared to punch the stupid thing in the face, all three of them suffered through what they thought was an auditory hallucination due to being so close to death. The sound of jet engines filled the air, seeming to bear down on top of them.

And then a hotly glowing arm made of metal slammed down on Ebidramon as it was just a yard away from them with a titanic crash, a powerful voice roaring "Trident Arm!" as a crater was left in the ground from the impact. The humans balked.

A huge blue dinosaur with armored wings on its back, a visor covering its face, armor lining its tail and a huge cudgel for one arm had practically landed on Ebidramon from directly above it and was currently grounding its face into the road. It was a surprising entrance to be sure, but what surprised Rikarde, Cassi and Liam the most was the fact a human boy with blond long hair and wearing a green trench coat was standing on the creature's back, perfectly balanced despite the struggling monster under the blue armored tyrannosaur.

"Sorry about that." He was smirking at their gobsmacked expressions, blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "We saw an opening and decided to give you guys a hand."

"Well well, reinforcements." Liam said. "They do say heroes are always late."

"Indeed." Rikarde agreed. He then slapped Cassi upside the head to keep her from getting ideas about the new kid.

"Hey!" She protested. The violet haired young woman had only managed to get as far as taking off his shirt in her head.

"Well Greymon, let's finish this guy off." The new kid said, and the dinosaur - undoubtedly his partner since he was riding it, - grabbed up the creature and tossed it away, the cannons on its back - which the new kid was standing on, - flaring for a single moment.

"Giga DESTROYER!" The tyrannosaur - a Greymon that the group had never seen before, - began blasting the Ebidramon in mid air with its laser cannons, making it scream in actual, meaningful pain for once. The monster hit the ground when the barrage ended, and immediately began to get struggle back to its multiple feet.

"Huh." The new kid frowned. "That thing is durable."

"Took on three Ultimates essentially without stop, of course it's durable." Liam shouted. "Though you've done the most damage to it so far."

"Well then, I'm going to have to take it up a step." The kid held up his Digivice - it had to be a Digivice, it certainly looked like one, but it wasn't a model any of them had ever seen before, - which gained an odd looking symbol on its screen as a golden glow surrounded the Greymon under him.

"Greymon, Super Evolve now!" He ordered.

"Metal Greymon, Super Evolve!" His partner roared as pieces of him began to explode and reassemble into a blocky, golden variant of himself. His cudgel arm became one that ended with claws. His normal arm became a cannon arm. His wings became less airplane-like and changed into more of the shape of a glider. His tail became shorter and stuck straight out, a cannon on the end of it too. His entire head was covered with a helm now, splitting at the mouth to allow it to open. He lost the visor, which showed off his red eyes. He roared and struck a fighting pose as he gleamed all over in the unnatural light. "Zeke Greymon!"

"What." Rikarde intoned, staring incredulously.

"Well you don't see that every day." Liam said with a pleasant smile.

"Pretty kitty," Cassi was mesmerized by the glowing golden armor on the beast.

"Finish it off, Zeke Greymon!" The new kid ordered.

"Plasma Railgun!" The beast snarled and pointed its cannon arm at the struggling Ebidramon. A successive burst of fire blasted plasma shells at the monster, who screamed as they exploded on and around him, covering him in golden colored fire.

"Final Strikes!" The brute roared once more and charged off at where Ebidramon emerged, stumbling, from the massive fireball. His claws pierced it right through the head, and everything paused for a moment. And then it gave a short wail as it broke apart into its composite data, which then formed ten eggs.

"Well. That's different." The new kid spoke softly, his eyebrows scrunched up.

"The King said things had changed since we've last been in the Digital World." The beast under him rumbled quietly back up at him.

"My turn right?" Liam said, rolling up his invisible sleeves. "Scan 'em up and all that?"

"If you have the Soul for it." Rikarde shrugged. "Go for it, then."

"Know what I'm going to go for." Cassi had a suggestive smile on her face as she waggled her eyebrows at the new kid. Rikarde smacked her again. "Stop that!"

"No."

"I'll find a way to scan 'em, no worries." Liam said, before pulling out his Digivice.

This time, Liam's Digivice shone with a blue light instead of the golden one when he had treated Seadramon. "Now then, my friends slash enemies, I think it's time for us to say our farewells." As he said this, the blue light shot out, hitting each egg, which then bounced to the following egg until all ten were glowing bright. Then, their digital code appeared, before snaking its way into Liam's digivice, the eggs vanishing from sight.

Liam collapsed onto one knee for a moment, coughing. "Even in egg form, ten might be a little too many to take in all at once like that. Ow."

"Pass them to me, then." Rikarde said, stepping up and holding out his DIC for Liam to pass things along to. "I'll make sure they're taken care of."

"No problem." Liam said, pressing a few buttons, before the data transferred easily to the other device. "Careful though, without my DigiSoul those things might wreck your DIC if they hatch before you get them where you need them to be."

"We got hatcheries for that reason." Rikarde smiled.

Conversation paused as the huge beast that was Zeke Greymon stomped his foot down hard a yard from them, making the ground shake under their feet. The humans looked at him warily as their Digimon began to crowd around him, all those Digivolved refusing to degenerate at the current moment. It was cautious of them, to be sure; they didn't know if he was gonna turn on them suddenly, they'd never seen these guys before, nor had they heard of them.

Zeke Greymon didn't seem all that worried, however. He just reached up with his claw hand and allowed his partner to step into its palm before gently lowering the boy down to the ground. After blondie had walked off his hand, Zeke Greymon straightened up and began to glow with the light of degeneration and _split_.

He became a blue, viral variation of Greymon, whom growled softly to himself and blasted steam from his nostrils. The other part of him became a dragon like creature made of metal, a long neck and tail, no arms and huge airplane wings with a cannon on his chest. With a start, Rikarde realized that those wings had been on the 'Metal Greymon'.

"What." He intoned.

"I was told you'd have this reaction." The blond was grinning now, enjoying the wide eyed stares this was bringing. "It's as hilarious as I thought it'd be."

"I know right?" Liam said. "This guy can't take surprises at all."

Rikarde smacked him upside the head this time. "Shut up you." He turned his look to the blond. "Who told you that and who are you? You don't look like one of our agents."

"I don't because I'm not, I was told by someone who deals with you and I'm Christopher Anders, the General of Blue Flare." The kid smiled. 

* * *

><p><strong>After note: Welp. This happened.<strong>

**To anyone about to complain, I did say in the first chapter (if not outright, then hinting it) that I would probably have some sort of crossover of Savers with other seasons in this story. This won't be the only crossover either. But what better way to start the crossover than with Xros Wars (or if going by the dub, Fusion Fighters).**

**I'm going to be doing a stupid thing and mixing and matching dub and original Japanese names, if you all couldn't see by the way. For certain characters like Kiriha/Christopher, they don't really look all that Japanese anyway. I like his dub name, even if Vig McNuggets isn't exactly the best voice actor they could have chosen for him.**

**Oh, and to all that have submitted characters so far (all two of you), I will NOT be taking any Fusion Fighter/General submissions. At least not yet. Who knows, I may do an adaption of Young Hunters as an arc in this story.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 7: Reinforcements for Free<span>**

* * *

><p>"So, is this really how you guys treat people who save your lives?" Christopher asked as he leaned back in his chair, feet propped up on the table. He was currently in one of the DATS 'chamber of debriefing' aka the interrogation room. Sitting in the seats across him were Liam and Rikarde. Rikarde didn't trust anyone else here to do this in a satisfactory way (not to mention he didn't want to subject this kid to the usual interrogation methods), so he was here. And he'd officially named Liam his second in command, so he'd pulled rank and had the other man join him.<p>

"This is a lot better than how we usually treat rogue tamers." Rikarde shrugged back in return. "I haven't slapped the shit out of you or hooked you up to a lie detector, at any rate."

"If you tried I'd break both your arms." The kid smirked.

"You don't even know the first thing about the guy." Liam said. "Not to mention, he did probably pull our butts out of a raging fire. You may want to cool your jets and leave the rules on the table for the moment."

"The hell do you think I'm doing here?" Rikarde shot back. "I'm not going to do the bad cop angle entirely. What I want to know is how he managed to do what he did. He _fused_ two Digimon together somehow, Liam, like that Shadow Octopus. I want-"

"Ah, so that's why that Ebidramon was like that." Christopher cut in, frowning. "So the guy with that army out to sea has the ability to DigiXros his minions, huh?"

"Yeah..." Rikarde eyed him for a moment. "He's only been turning captured soldiers into Raremon up to this point, so this was different from normal needless to say."

"DigiXros huh." Liam said, flipping through his notebook. "Ah, here it is. I knew Mordin mentioned it. Some Digimon simply don't have the inner powers of others, so they don't have the energy and power to reach ultimate form or mega." He flipped the page. "He believes that a force called Digimon fusion would arise to compensate. Where lower leveled Digimon could fuse together to make stronger versions, possibly with a particularly strong Digimon as its base. So that's what your Greymon did, eh?"

"My Greymon is the base of all my DigiXroses, yes." Christopher nodded. "Or rather, his form with MailBirddramon is the base Xros I have with all my Xroses. I'm pretty sure you DATS people are able to carry more than one Digimon, right?"

Rikarde nodded slightly. "At first our DIC's were only able to hold one Digimon of the Rookie level, but the storage capabilities were worked on by its original creator to hold at most five, of any level. The rest of the agency has yet to catch up with that fact yet, though."

Kiriha sniffed. "Yeah, well, my Xros Loader," He motioned at the blue Digivice sitting on the table, where he'd been requested politely to put it for the moment, "Can assumedly hold an unlimited amount of Digimon. I had practically an army in there at one time, but now I only keep around my best, most trusted partners."

"Really now?" Rikarde's eyebrows shot up to his hair line.

"Yes. I have at three others you haven't met in there, besides Greymon and MailBirddramon." Christopher smirked. "Every single one of them are an army unto themselves, so I keep the rest with The King to bolster his own forces. It's why I introduced myself as a 'General.'"

"I'm guessing the other reason you downsized your force is the DigiSoul drain." Liam said. "Here in the real world it's much harder to support Digimon than in the digital world." He shrugged. "Also you sure it's five?" He looked to Rikarde. "I mean admittedly mine was modified, but even then I think I can have a party of about six, maybe more. I never do listen to Mordin's lectures properly."

"Yeah, whatever you want to call it. That's why I only have my five with me." Christopher waved it off.

"Five is the limit on a standard DIC." Rikarde obviously did not want to give too much away to the rogue agent - they were the ones interrogating him, not the other way around after all. "Whether or not they have more is different based on the person."

"Right right. Now, about this whole King thing." Liam said. "The digital world has more than one king, doesn't it? Has that changed or something?"

"Not really, it's just the one I'm friends with." Christopher shrugged. "He's also the one most of those other kings defer to. He's like, the King of Kings there. Went on a big adventure with him and his General way back, couple years our time but over fifteen centuries his. I think you'd know him; his name is Shoutmon."

The pencil in Rikarde's hand, which he had been writing things down with, snapped as his grip became crushing.

"Well he does." Liam said, glancing at Rikarde.

"H-he's one of the guys we talk to a lot." Rikarde looked a little sick. "He's also... One of the ones me and Commander Magnus were asking help from."

"Which is exactly why I'm here now." Christopher was smirking. He was enjoying this. "I was already here on this side."

"Right well... glad you could make it then." Liam said. "Though I'm guessing this guy is gonna want confirmation or proof or something."

"My Xros Loader should be proof enough, but very well." Christopher sighed and sat properly in his chair, pulling a badge from his coat's inner pocket and showed it. It was King Shoutmon's Official Symbol, a hold out insignia from the Xros Heart United Army days.

The table _cracked_ from Rikarde gripping it too tightly. Christopher quickly grabbed up his Digivice. "You must run out of furniture doing that all the time." He noted with a bit of snark, looking down at the broken table.

"I wouldn't know, but I guess so." Liam said, standing up. "That means we're done with interrogating and stuff right? We can be a little friendlier and do things to prepare for that Dagomon guy who probably is planning to kill us right at this moment?"

"That's the entire reason why I'm here." Christopher stood up as well. After a moment Rikarde stood as well.

"Are there any more bombs you'd like to drop on me, while we're at it?" The bearded man asked, frowning heavily.

"Yeah." Christopher nodded slightly, smirking again. "I brought with me an entire army of... What did you call me? 'Rogue agents'?"

Rikarde's entire face went blank as his communicator beeped. He pulled it from his pocket and opened it. "What."

"Sir, we uh... We got a hundreds of kids and Digimon outside HQ right now, with one of them asking to talk to you. Something about being 'DigiDestined'? Am I getting that right? Yes? Okay."

"Friends." Liam said, patting Rikarde on the back as the table gave way under his fists. 

* * *

><p>Rikarde stomped his way out the front doors of the DATS HQ and paused. In front of the building was a literal sea of children and Digimon, all of them milling about and talking with agents who were interviewing them and writing things down. The apparent leaders of this army were a blond boy with a Terriermon and Lopmon, who hung out on his shoulders, and a pink - <em>PINK<em> - haired girl with a Palmon, whom were both talking with the agent who had called him.

"Told you it was an army," Christopher smirked from behind him. Both he and Liam had followed the man out of the building and were taking in the sight of the kids, ranging from really young (barely ten) to young adulthood (the girl with the Palmon and the boy with the Dogbunnies), all of them apparently willing to help repel the invasion.

"Well, if the younger members can be used to ensure everyone really has been evacuated, and to escort people from the shelters outside the city, that could be a great help. Meanwhile the older members can coordinate with us, specifically we need people with flying Digimon or Digimon that can swim. We'll need to close that breach somehow." Liam seemed to take all of this in stride, likely due to his acting training, as the large number of people would normally overwhelm a sane individual.

"Oh will you stop being so unflappable." Rikarde growled at him, before walking over to talk with the apparent leaders of this group. The girl, as he got closer, was wearing what seemed to be a rather patriotic outfit - red, white and blue with a huge golden star decorating the front of her shirt, situated right in the middle of her chest. She even had little white stars in her hair! Her eyes, he noted, were pink as well. This was insane.

The boy was at least more normal looking. He wore jean shorts, a long sleeved shirt with a jacket vest over it. He was blond, as stated before, and of course he had blue eyes. Why wouldn't he have them? This was the second one he met. He just hoped _this_ blond wasn't a snarky little asshole that was determined to piss him off as much as possible.

The agent talking with them turned as he approached and saluted, before excusing himself. Rikarde schooled his face into a careful looking frown, masking his annoyance. Wouldn't due to get these guys flustered after all.

"So, I hear you all are coming to back us up." He said, coming to a stop.

"We've been making the trip over here since the news started circulating a week ago." The _pink_ haired girl said, clasping her hands behind her and having the good graces to smile in embarrassment. "It took some time to get everyone together, but I called people who knew more people and we all made arrangements. We don't want this army taking over any part of our country more than anyone else."

"Sheesh, to think you all managed to pull this together in a short time." Liam said. "I'm impressed. I'm only sorry New York's been so strapped. Now we're looking like the lazy ones."

"Well, every time we've tried to help out before we got shouted at, captured or threatened." The blond kid frowned at them. "And not in that order, either. We've all been laying low because of that. This time it's just far too important to be cautious about!"

Rikarde's frown turned severe at this point.

"Willis, it's alright." _Pinkie_ gently patted her friend on the shoulder. "We're not worrying about that right now, and I don't think they're going to do anything to us this time."

"I'm pretty much on the black list with DATS already. They just don't ditch me cause of my power." Liam said, waving an arm. "Anyone who can get on the stage is more than welcome; we need a full ensemble to put on the show, after all."

"Right. So introductions are in order." Pinkie smiled at them. "I'm Mimi Tachikawa, and I'm part of the International Team of DigiDestined. My friends and I were the ones who stopped the World Wide Invasion a twelve years back, and were responsible for defeating Venom Myotismon in Japan before then."

Rikarde's eyebrows shot up into his hairline again. "Oh, well, wonderful. We got a whole spittoon of celebrities helping us now." He threw his hands up into the air. "What, is that kid next to you the Digital King and Queen of Cheese, then?"

"That sounds like it'd a fun title to have, at any rate." Christopher snarked from behind him. Everyone gave him a look to shut up.

"I'm Donald Wallace," The other blond spoke up, frowning at Rikarde. "My friends call me Willis. I'm technically part of the second generation of DigiDestined, but I missed most of the action because the crisis I was chosen to help avert was centered mostly in Japan. And a Virus took over my other partner." The Lopmon on his shoulder shivered at the reminder. Terriermon gave him a comforting pat on the back with one of his ears.

"Liam Reyas." Liam said. "Actor on Broadway, and DATS member on the side. I don't think I've got any good things that would make me famous to people like you though. Just been keeping the digital menace at bay."

"It's strange but I never thought things would ever get this bad." Mimi was biting her lip. "The veil between worlds has never been this weak before, and it's always taken considerable time and energy for an evil Digimon to break through, especially with an army! I never thought it'd happen again so soon, it took couple years both times for it to happen."

"Things have changed, apparently." Liam said. "Some for the better, it's just unfortunate there are some assholes that think taking over the world is the best solution. Am I right?"

"Indeed. I just wish more people would get along." The girl sighed. "And time and again there are people that just keep making things worse! It doesn't matter if they're human or Digimon, it's all the same..."

"Nice as this chat is," Christopher cut in, drawing glares once more, "This is not why we're all here. We can save all this pleasant chatty business as something to talk over with tea later, right now we've got to plan for war. Unless you, you know, don't want to live in a couple of days."

"Man makes a point once more." Liam said. "Meet Ranamon." The blue Ultimate realized from his Digivice. "She's the head of the sea force, who may or may not have to face Dagomon directly. How many of you have sea Digimon?"

"A lot, actually." Willis spoke up. "It's funny, but it's like everyone who answered us all had some sort of Aquan Digimon. I can't really call it a coincidence considering who we're going to face - it's like something really wants us to have a shot at winning."

"And I have a few of my friends from Japan coming tomorrow; they'll be bringing some back up as well." Mimi was smiling. "My friend Joe is among them, and his partner is an Aquan as well."

"Reinforcements from Japan eh..." Liam said. "Well, that's something I wasn't expecting. Just don't tell me any of your friends is named Nene and we're good."

"That would be me, not her." Christopher spoke up. "She was one of the other Generals that worked with me in my big adventure with King Shoutmon. She's busy with her idol work in Hong Kong, so I haven't exactly told her to come down here to help us out. But to be honest, I don't really want to drag my friends back into this."

"And why is that? We could use all the help we can get!" Willis glared at him. Christopher stared placidly back.

"Because they're all finally happy." He stated bluntly. "I don't exactly want to ruin their happy, normal lives again. They've all probably gotten used to being kids again and not Generals commanding armies that could have all died in any engagement."

"Besides, do you really want to deal with a gaggle of idol groupies?" Liam said. "Girl is seriously overworked man. Her manager is a nightmare to deal with too. We only ran that show for one week, but it was sold out every night and I swear half the audience never changed." He sighed. "Either way, that's just personal problems, gotta let that go, yadda yadda." He turned towards the Digimon teams. "Next, we need teams of two or more younger tamers. You all will be in charge of secondary evacuation. You make sure no one is stuck in town, and move those in shelters outside of town, since the shelters weren't built for being drowned."

"That's a good idea." Mimi nodded. "We'll gather together who we think will be good for that. Do you want others to set up ambush zones or...?"

"Apparently Dagomon ain't going to be leading his forces into the city if he can help it." Rikarde shook his head. "He's apparently got some monstrous siege weapon that he keeps locked up. He's making a portal he's gonna throw over our heads so it can smash us where he thinks we're delicate enough."

"That's... Not good." Mimi and Willis shared a look, Mimi bringing a hand to her mouth in worry.

"We'll manage. To be honest, it makes me feel better about assigning evac to the younger digidestinies. That's what they're called right? Not tamers or something?" Liam asked.

"Close." Mimi gave a girlish chuckle behind that hand now. "DigiDestined. Destined, not destinies. So many people get it wrong, but it's always so funny."

"Yeah. Tamers, as far as we know, are people who get Digivices by being around Digimon, not people chosen by some higher force from the Digital World, or even the Digital World itself, like us." Willis said.

"Wow, you guys got chosen huh. That's pretty nifty." Liam said. "No, wait, getting off topic. Attack plan, right." He turned purposefully towards Christopher. "I want to form a second aerial assault team, to support the sea team from the air if we can. Think you can manage something like that? Rikarde has to lead the ground forces so he's not an option."

"Hey, both of my partners are fliers, thank you very much!" Rikarde protested, but everyone ignored him.

"Sure, I don't mind. With Zeke Greymon, I'm sure we'll be able to hold off pretty much everyone." Christopher nodded. "My third partner is a Mega level Aquan, by you guys' standards, too. So I'll be able to help out there as well."

"Wait what." Rikarde stared.

"Oh my!" Mimi was surprised again.

"Wow really?" Willis blinked.

"Very handy." Liam said. "I know you're guys are fliers Rikarde, but as commander here you have to be on the front line of the seashore. Seadramon is already going to be in the fight, so how do you expect to lead if you send off your other Digimon and leave yourself unprotected?"

"Yeah, but you're still ruling out Magnus." Rikarde argued. "That man is not going to stay down when the fighting begins, I assure you."

"Oh just stop fighting, 'Sir'," Christopher smirked at him. "You're not getting out of the commander's chair, from the look of it. You're going to be needed to coordinate for us on top of it."

"But I... It... Fine." Rikarde all but snarled and looked away. He obviously did not like being told what to do when he had his mind set on something.

"What worries me now is this supposed siege engine." Mimi looked at Liam worriedly. "Who are we going to assign to destroy it? If he's going to... 'Throw a portal', I think you said, how do we know where to send people to try and take it out?"

"That's... not going to be easy. It's why I want a sky and sea team. Unless he manages to take the beach he can't make a portal on land, and I doubt he'd count on that. Therefore he'd have to make it in one of the other two." Liam held up his fingers. "The most likely is a sky portal. That way the siege engine can be used as soon as it's summoned. One that is underwater would need to be adjusted depending on the depth, and since we'll have such a large force engaging him there; it's highly unlikely he'll risk it." Liam pointed to the sky above them. "That leaves only one option. As to how to close it, well... I must confess I'm at a loss. Any of you know how to do it?"

"Well, it's second hand knowledge, but a friend of mine once closed a portal that was summoned by an enemy by hijacking it with their Digivice to use it to open another portal," Mimi said, and she instantly had the attention of Rikarde and Christopher. "It was to the Dark Ocean, however, and it took a lot of determination not only from them but some of my other friends to close it again. The Dark Ocean Portal was used by them to push their current enemy into it before they did however."

"Your Digivices can do that?" The acting commander all but demanded.

"Uh, yes?" She blinked a couple times at his tone. "We can also open them if we have access to a computer with an internet connection, but my Digivice only just got that upgrade a couple months ago-"

"Wow." Liam said. "I mean, wow, that is cool, like seriously you can do that?"

"Well, um, yes. Our Digivices are technology from the Digital World, and you've seen really powerful Digimon just waving their hands and making portals appear like," Mimi snapped her fingers, "that, right? Well, I would think they'd want to program that in to the devices that we use to Digivolve our Digimon so that way we could go there if we really need to, you know, save it? Or at least that's what Izzy and Gennai have told me. Why, how do you guys return Digimon to the Digital World after calming them?"

"A teleporter." Rikarde said numbly.

"Oh wow, like on that Star Trek show Izzy likes? He'll be psyched to hear that when he gets here!" Mimi said excitedly.

"I think your Digivices kind of out class us there." Liam said scratching his head. "Anyway, how confident are you in this portal closing with your Digivice thing?"

"Well," She bit her lip again, "I'm not sure. It's only been done by someone with the D-3, but he had ties to the Dark Ocean in the first place. If we had Ken coming over with us we might be able to do it, but he's been kind of sick for a couple weeks. He just wasn't up to coming this time. But I'm pretty sure anyone with a D-3 will be able to do it! We have a few D-3 holders coming on over with the others!"

"Wait, you said this kid hijacked the portal, right?" Rikarde had suddenly snapped to attention, giving her a very intense look. "And he was able to redirect the destination to some place other than what the guy you were facing wanted, right?"

"Um, yeah, I did. Why?" She asked, looking at him curiously.

Rikarde grinned mischievously. "I believe we can get more reinforcements using that."

"But didn't the hijack only turn the portal into the one for the dark dimension or whatever?" Liam asked

"Good question. We'll have to ask that Izzy person when he gets here, maybe get on in with that Gennai dude. You still got contact with King Shoutmon?" Rikarde turned his attention over to Christopher. He seemed to be catching on to the acting commander's idea.

"Yeah, here." He held up his wrist, showing off a red communicator that had been hidden by the sleeve of his coat. It had King Shoutmon's Royal Insignia on it, too. "Works across dimensions. Had it reworked like that by his chief engineer and magical adviser, Wisemon. It's how I got word you guys needed help."

"Well, we'll get those eggheads working on it and come up with a solution to this problem so we can get our desired result; getting the help we need from the King of Kings himself." Rikarde's grin was wide. "I think our chances just skyrocketed _again_."

"If it works, then we'll know something really wants us to win." The grin seemed to be infectious, because now Willis was smiling.

"Maybe it's the Digital World itself!" Mimi giggled, smiling as well. 

* * *

><p><strong>After note: Bet ya'll didn't see that coming did ya? Should have, especially from last chapter. Chris was not going to come alone, though why he didn't bring along the rest of the Xros WarsFusion Fighters gang... Well, you'll find out why later. Otherwise crossover is in full effect now, anything can go, raddaradda.**

**I'm thinking of making a tumblr so I can post details of this story up on it, but it seems like a waste of effort if it's only going to be for this story. I honestly don't know. What do you guys think I should do?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong>Chapter 8: Reinforcements for Free Redux<strong>

* * *

><p>Now when the DATS agents had been told that portals were a thing the DigiDestined's Digivices could do, none of them expected a live demonstration, not when they had just learned that fact. The two DigiDestined had been invited to a large break room, and had immediately confiscated some pillows to pile up onto the floor. The DATS agents plus Christopher were raising their eyebrows at it, but the DigiDestined went about it nonchalantly and offered no explanations.<p>

After that, a laptop had been placed on a table next to the pile and opened up, facing them. Immediately after it booted up to the desktop, a video call on an odd program popped up and was answered. The stupid thing looked archaic compared to programs such as Skype or AIM or other chat programs with video call functions, with the video window scrunched up into the upper left corner while the rest of the screen was taken up by a stereotypical view of the inner workings of a computer, with glowing chips and motherboards all around.

"I see you got things working on your side really quick, Mimi." A red headed kid on the other side spoke up with crystal clear sound quality. Not even Skype got it that good, from Rikarde's experience. "I take it that Christopher guy came through?"

"The DATS people were very accommodating this time!" Ms. Tachikawa was smiling. "I think the threat of the invasion is kind of making them realize they can't do these things alone anymore."

"Yeah well, good as that is to hear," The kid spoke, "I still don't trust them, we don't know what they're going to do after we take Dagomon down a few notches."

Rikarde decided to step in there, walking up beside the girl in the view of the camera's feed. "I can't say anything about all our branches," He said, "But I can definitely say the Cali branch will owe all you guys a debt. And we don't exactly turn on people who help us over here. We're kind of the risk takers that way."

"New York just doesn't care. They don't bother to hide the fact that Digimon exist there, so the existence of tamers outside of DATS is pretty readily accepted. I don't think you have to worry there." Liam said. "Anyway this is cool. It's like retro but better than new things."

"I see. Well, we're not tamers." The red head looked away for a moment. "Daisuke don't touch that!"

A voice from off-screen whined, "But it's so attention grabbing! It's like its telling me to give it a nice, hard poke-"

"You do it and you lose your hand!" He looked back at the laptop's camera. "Anyway. You've most likely already had the discussion, but we're different from tamers. We have an idea as to what we're doing, for one!"

"But Koushiro I thought you said that they already had the discussion, why are you going over the points if they did?" The off-screen voice cut in again.

"Why are you trying to be reasonable?" He shot back to the off-screen voice.

"Because I'm trying not to be a douche?" The voice replied.

"Yeah, we've already heard it, and right now I'd rather work on getting you kids over here than arguing over something that isn't even worth it anyway." Rikarde stated, crossing his arms. "Unless you'd rather the entire west coast of the United States gets overrun by a bunch of evil dudes who want to kill all humans?"

Koushiro stared at him for a moment and then sighed. "Is Iori here yet?" He spoke to the off-screen person.

"I don't know, I'm not your butler. And if he was, I think Jou would have barged on in here with him-"

The sound of a door opening then interrupted the off-screen voice. "Alright, they're both here! Can we get a move on? I need to be back on Monday to take a test!" An other unfamiliar voice said. Mimi seemed to gain a smile at it, though, which had Rikarde raise an eyebrow at her.

"I think saving the world is more important than taking a test." Koushiro replied.

"Tell that to my teachers. Hell, tell it to my father. None of them would believe you." The new voice shot back.

"Well I'm not asking them, am I?" The red head rolled his eyes.

"Izzy? Can you just come on over now?" Mimi interrupted them. "We have a pillow pile for you guys and everything! Just in the case you still haven't worked out the kinks in it yet."

"Wait, the pillow pile is for them?" Liam asked, realizing just now he seemed to have fallen off the track quite a way back.

"We used to have a problem with traveling through portals!" The off-screen Daisuke supplied. "At first it was all we could do not to end up in a huge pile when we went through one en masse on the way back to the Real World. It's why we started making pillow piles for return trips."

"Where the hell did you learn the phrase en masse and how did you know how to use it correctly." Koushiro looked at the off-screen boy in disbelief.

"Heard it from you once, looked it up in a dictionary." Was the reply.

"You read a dictionary?" He asked incredulously.

"Yep! Dai-Dai read it from front to back, too!" A lisping voice, also off-screen, supplied.

"Yeah, which then lead to me reading a thesaurus too." Daisuke said.

Koushiro looked downright horrified. "What."

"It was kinda boring, but the look on Miyako's face was downright hilarious the next day when I began waxing all sesquipedalian loquacious on her ass."

"I remember that." A young voice broke in, sounding amused. "She thought you'd been replaced by a body double for a _month_."

"Yeah, it was great, wasn't it?" Daisuke chuckled.

"Think I like this kid," Rikarde said lowly to Liam. "Or at least the way he thinks. I'm kind of sad I don't have the patience to pull something like that on people I know."

"I wouldn't. Mostly because I already could if I wanted to. But I don't so I won't even if I would but I wouldn't." Liam said with a smile. "English."

Rikarde stared at him for a moment. "You're real creepy when you do that, you know that?"

"Only if you ever try to think about the thoughts that are thoughtfully constructed and placed carefully in the part of your brain that hates thinking." Liam supplied helpfully.

"Dude, if you don't stop that, I swear I will punch you. And I'll add the Soul to it, no matter how tired and hungry I am." Rikarde threatened, waving a fist at him.

"Sure sure, I'm done." Liam held up his hands.

"Better be." Rikarde grumbled.

"So are you ready to come through the DigiPort or not, boys?" Mimi asked, crossing her arms.

"I'm ready as soon as everyone else is. You did fix that problem, right Koushiro?" Jou asked.

"Yes, I did. And I am, too." The red head stated.

"There's nothing stopping me on this end." Iori agreed.

"I've been ready to go for hours!" Daisuke whined.

"Well then, come on through!" Mimi told them, pushing Rikarde and Liam out of the way. The computer screen exploded in a flash of light, and four humans and Digimon formed from it. Five feet above the ground.

They landed on a heap on the provided pillows, and instantly the complaints began to sound from the pile of limbs.

"God_damn_it Koushiro, I'm never believing a word you say ever again!"

"Seriously man, _you had one job_!"

"Daisuke you're crushing me!"

"And your _ass_ is in my face!"

"Friends." Liam said, patting Rikarde on the back.

"Okay, do that one more time and pow, boom, straight to the moon." Rikarde shrugged his hand away and gave Liam a sour look.

After a few minutes of floundering around, the new additions to the group had untangled themselves and were going through the rounds of introduction. After introducing the DATS team to them, she began to introduce her friends to them.

"This is Daisuke Motomiya." She waved at the young man. He had burgundy hair done up in an odd looking, spiky hair style Rikarde suspected was supposed to be an afro, but it was not quite large enough to be like the (in his honest opinion) majestic hair style. He wore a flame patterned blue jacket, army pants and yellow gloves, with round blue framed goggles on his forehead. He was growing a bit of a goatee, too.

"Sup." He smiled.

"We call him Davis, though. It's part of our thing, we make up code names for each other." Mimi added.

"We had to, or else you guys would have figured out who we were and locked us up a long time ago." The red head cut in. Mimi gave him a glare that had him shrinking in on himself.

"Don't interrupt me or else this will take all day!" She said authoritatively. "Anyway, the little blue guy next to Davis is V-mon, his partner."

"Yo!" The little blue dragon waved. He walked on two legs and had a huge head with a domed forehead, a tiny horn on his nose and little yellow golden V-shape sitting between his huge red eyes. Floppy ears twitched as they stood at attention. He was a cute little bugger.

"Attack of the Titans!" Fanbeemon buzzed over excitedly, before Liam bopped the little bee and returned her to the DIC.

"Aw, Little Bee..." Kunemon muttered from Rikarde's right shoulder sadly.

"This is Iori Hida." Mimi moved on, going to the youngest in the group. He looked around eighteen, Rikarde noted, with brown hair and wood green eyes. His hair was done up in some sort of bowl cut that made it almost look like a mushroom. He wore a tan coat with stripes of darker brown on it, dark brown pants and leather shoes.

"Pleased to meet you." He said politely, bowing.

"We call him Cody. And before you ask, yes, most of our codenames are from the English language." Mimi said.

"Even if they aren't used properly? Davis isn't exactly a first name, yanno." Rikarde stated.

"All the more reason why they're just codenames." Mimi smiled. "Iori's partner is Armadillomon."

"Howdy!" The mammalian Digimon raised a paw in greeting. It was a mostly yellow creature, with an armored back, odd red markings on its forehead, green eyes, a purple belly and odd ear frills that would look more natural on some sort of amphibian. It also seemed to be speaking with a Texan accent, but somehow Rikarde got the idea that that wasn't its natural speaking voice.

"A pleasure." Liam said with an overly dramatic butler style bow.

"Next up is Koushiro Izumi." She waved at the red head. He didn't look particularly Japanese, not like his fellows, but Rikarde supposed that he could have just been adopted. He probably hadn't had an easy life over there in the Land of the Rising Sun because of it. He had dark eyes and whiter skin than his fellows, along with his red hair. He wore an orange button up shirt and pair of brown shorts. Under his button up shirt, which was left open, was a blue and white striped tee shirt. He wore purple shoes with a lightning bolt pattern on the side and green colored socks.

"I'd say this was a pleasure," He began drolly, "But I'd be lying."

"Don't be like that, man. They ain't done nothing to us yet." Davis slung an arm around them in a very familiar, friendly gesture for a Japanese person. Koushiro shrugged him off.

"We call him Izzy. He actually insisted we call him that when we first met, back when we were kids." Mimi continued regardless, smiling. "His partner is the Tentomon flying beside him."

"Greetings! I'm sorry my partner is so hostile, but we haven't had very good run ins with your agency in the past." The odd ladybug-like Digimon spoke in a slightly warbling voice, like there was some odd vibration in his throat. He stood on two legs and had two pairs of arms, tiny little things that looked like they were good for grasping food and a huge pair that looked like they had huge, black sickles on them. He had huge green eyes and long antennae on his head. To top it off, he was colored crimson red, the color of blood, and black. For all as threatening as he looked, however, he had a very kind, gentle sounding voice despite the odd vibration to it.

"And last but not least, Jou Kido, one of my best friends." Mimi motioned at the last human of the group. He was a man who looked like he had been a major worrywart in the past, but had since grown out of it. He wore a button up dress shirt under a blue coat, grey pants and blue shoes. Glasses sat on his nose, and he wore his blue hair long. He carried a blue duffel bag with him.

"Glad I can be of any help here." He stated, smiling slightly. "I'm training to be a doctor, so I can probably help anyone out if they get injured."

"Good you have you around then." Rikarde nodded.

"We call him Joe. Which he just loves." Mimi smiled at the groan her friend gave her.

"Seriously, I don't know why you guys decided to do that. My nickname and real name only have a letter's difference!"

"I think they did it because it was funny, man." Davis said.

"It's still aggravating!" Joe complained.

"His partner is that Gomamon." Mimi was covering her giggles with her hand.

"Pleased to meetcha!" The Digimon raised its paw in greeting. He was currently clinging on to this partner's back, two huge flippers wrapped around the human to keep him there. There were huge black claws on them. His body was covered in white fur with tiny purple markings running down his back. A red Mohawk ran from his forehead to the back of his head, and he had brilliant green eyes.

"Ah, the Aquan you mentioned could be a help." Liam said. "Rude question: can anyone here Mega or do that Xros thing Christopher can?"

"Cross what?" Izzy blinked.

"All three of us first Generation DigiDestined can have our partners Warp Digivolve to Mega, yeah." Mimi nodded.

"What." Rikarde intoned, his face blank.

"We're hoping we're all that's needed to face Dagomon. He's supposed to only be an Ultimate, but we've been having trouble with Digimon who are supposed to be this level and yet they've been kicking our butts." Joe sighed, adjusting his glasses. "Always trouble, those ones."

"You haven't heard about Cross fusion or DigiXros or whatever it's called?' Liam asked Izzy, before turning to Christopher. "Didn't that originate over in Japan?"

Christopher clicked his tongue. "Temporal nonsense." He began. "My big adventure took place long back in the past before theirs did. My Digivice is technically the first model of the things. The guys who made _theirs_ decided to focus on Digivolving a single partner instead of combining multiple partners."

Izzy gave the blond a hard stare. "You've never told us this before."

"It wasn't relevant before." Christopher shot back.

"Suppose that's yet another point for Blue Flare. Team Digidestinies and Team Dudes Plus Cassi is totally behind." Liam said with a sigh. "Well, if most of you can Mega, then yes, I think that'd help us immensely."

"_DigiDestined_." Izzy stressed, even as both Mimi and Davis began to chuckle at the slip up.

"So seriously, which one of you can actually battle Mega level?" Liam said. "By my estimation, and this is just a guess based on the information we've gotten so far, but if Dagomon can use this absorption or fusion technique, whatever we want to call it-"

"DigiXros." Christopher offered.

"Sure that. Anyway doesn't this mean Dagomon can become stronger than a mega?" Liam asked.

There was silence at the point Liam brought up, with everyone looking at each other for a moment, before Christopher broke it. "I don't think he'll use it on himself like that." He stated. "There's an upper limit to how much a Digimon can be fused, and while I'm sure this Dagomon is strong in body he's not very strong in spirit. Hell, the strongest in terms of spirit I knew of could DigiXros the entire Digital World onto him." The DigiDestined, the DATS agents, everyone stared at him at this news. "So I theorize that while he could fuse some of his more powerful minions to him, I don't think he'll try to fuse his entire army with himself unless he was desperate." He continued. "And by the time he would be, his forces are most likely going to be cut down to a sliver of what they were and his siege engine will be destroyed, everything willing. He wouldn't have much to DigiXros with then."

"But if he even absorbs one stronger part of his army..." Liam said, before trailing off. He realized that line of thought wasn't helping. "I'd rather plan for at least three, preferably four or five people to engage Dagomon. We want him to have no chance in this fight."

"We can be three of them." Joe motioned to Izzy, himself and Mimi.

"Yeah, and I can finally get to punch that jerk out for what he almost did to Kari!" Gomamon agreed with him, looking rather angry. "He tried to turn her into some Dark Mistress so he could use her Crest powers to brainwash more minions to his cause years ago! And we ain't forgotten that!"

"Huh, so he's been active for years then?" Rikarde raised an eyebrow. "That's interesting to know, but doesn't help us."

"I'm going to be one of the ones to take him on." Kiriha said, and looked like he was inviting arguments to the contrary. "Zeke Greymon and Deckerdramon should fill out the remaining two slots to fight him."

"So five then. Rikarde's on ground forces. For Cassi, I need Lucemon to lead the aerial groups. Dolce will back him up. Does that work?" Liam asked.

"It should." Rikarde reluctantly agreed. "But there's still the problem of the siege engine's portal and where Dagomon will throw it. As it is, he can throw it anywhere above us and use it to smash up our lines, and I don't think those guys will get to him fast enough to keep him from tossing it. Not as a dig to you guys," He nodded at the DigiDestined and General. "But you'll probably have to fight your way through waves of minions before you get to him, and that'll give him time to throw the portal. We need to be able to control where he's gonna toss it."

"So like, give him a really tempting target, right? Something he can't ignore?" Davis asked.

"Exactly. The only problem now is what could we use?" Rikarde pondered, stroking his beard.

"There's no guarantee Dagomon won't just fire it wherever he wants. But that's why you lead the ground forces." Liam said. "A commander of the forces is always the best target for assassinations."

"So I make myself the target." Rikarde looked like he was thinking for a second, before he grinned. "I actually approve of that. Means I'll have to be very flashy, though, to keep his attention away from you guys."

"I was already expecting that, to be honest." Liam responded.

"Alright then. And then there's the other plan we need to find out if it's possible to pull off." Rikarde said.

"What other plan?" Joe raised an eyebrow.

"Well, when he throws that portal, he's gonna have to leave it open, right? To let his siege engine come through, and then put it back supposedly after he's done." Rikarde stated. "Ms. Tachikawa-"

"Please, call me Mimi."

"MS. Tachikawa," Rikarde repeated. "Told us one of your own was able to hijack a portal like that by using one of your Digivices. I was thinking that you guys could do that here as well, only instead of opening one up to whatever hell dimension you guys opened it up to last time, you open it up to King Shoutmon's front door and allow him and his army to come on through as well."

"That..." Izzy, Joe, Davis and Cody all stared at him blankly for a moment, before Izzy continued, "It might be doable, but I'd need to speak with one of our benefactors about it."

"Then get that Gennai guy on the line. Christopher also said he has a line in on King Shoutmon's magitek advisor dude." Izzy flinched horribly.

"How do you know that name?" Izzy barked.

"Ms. Tachikawa was helpful and told me." Rikarde stated, a little confused by the reaction.

Izzy immediately turned on her. "MIMI!"

"Hey, we're trying to stop Dagomon from getting a foothold on taking over the world. I thought that they'd like to know the name of someone who would want to help!" Mimi said, planting her hands on her hips.

"Mimi, Gennai told us NOT to give his name out to these people! They can search for him now and-"

"Look, kid," Rikarde interrupted Izzy before he could really begin ranting. "I ain't even written that name down. The only one who know it are me, Liam and our Digimon. We ain't going to give it out, so if your friend doesn't want it to be dropped around any other DATS agents, I ain't gonna drop it. Neither are my boys. And I'm sure that goes for Liam and his girls, too. Ain't that right, Li?" He turned to Liam.

"Who are we talking about again?" Liam asked, obviously shook out of his thoughtful state.

"See?" Rikarde turned back to Izzy.

Izzy stared at them both like they were crazy, but at the pleading look Mimi was giving him he slowly relented. "Fine." He said. "But I am going to talk with him. Alone."

"Gonna need me if you want to get in touch with Wisemon." Christopher said, looking nonchalant at the look he was given. "So he can do things on the King's side. Also if you're good I might even ask another friend for extra help."

"Then I'll start coordinating the teams in the meantime." Liam said, and then patted Rikarde on the back. "Friends."

Rikarde bopped him on the arm in retaliation.


	9. Chapter 9

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 8: Best Laid Plans<span>**

* * *

><p>The next few days were spent planning and preparing. The younger DigiDestined were sent with low level DATS agents to make sure all of San Fransisco had, indeed, been fully evacuated. This included small covens of the homeless and people too stubborn to leave. With varying levels of persuasion – the fiery haired lad's Greymon was a great diplomat apparently, - the leftovers were led from city.<p>

After the citizens were gone, the younger DigiDestined along with the higher level DATS agents and older DigiDestined constructed barricades where humans could hide when the fighting began and traps for any amphibious land forces that Dagomon had. With only a couple days left to do it, they had to make it count.

During this Rikarde took Liam, Christopher and the DigiDestined available aside to plan. Christopher seemed to know exactly what to do in this regard (he didn't call himself a General for nothing), though the DigiDestined weren't bad at it either. Liam was there to be a fresh perspective, not having as much strategy training as the others but enough to poke holes in what seemed like great plans, so they could be revised and made greater.

Granted this would sometimes amount to Rikarde and Izzy butting heads, most of the arguments were started by Izzy. They weren't about the plans themselves, but more the fact that Rikarde was a DATS agent and Izzy's fixated dislike of them. Rikarde wasn't one to take things lying down and constantly allowed Izzy to draw him into these arguments. After Liam forced them apart when the arguments got so bad that planning was coming to a halt, he forced the two to shut up under threat of Fanbeemon sting. Not receiving said sting was the only things those two agreed upon, so any plans from then on were relayed through others instead.

Cassi was making sure to do her own part as this all occurred. She seemed to enjoy commanding the grunts with a velvet covered iron fist. If something wasn't done right the first time, they were given a soft reprimand and told to do it over again until they got it right.

Of course, she did it in the way she promised to and dressed rather provocatively, despite her partner's protests; wearing a short mini skirt, lingerie stockings and a white button up blouse that was unbuttoned enough to show off her cleavage.

There were several accidents caused by thkis distraction at first, however after a while the grunts got more accustomed to it. When they began to falter, she changed the game on them. Cassi would go into their personal space and practically bump them with her boobs, among other things. Needless to say, she made it uncomfortable for them, to the point toes were getting stubbed or things fell onto people's feet. Or even ran into walls. The poor bastards never knew what hit them. 

* * *

><p>As they were going to be part of the same team when the war blew over, the three were making a point to have as many meetings as possible. In the office Rikarde had practically taken over, all three of them sat sharing drinks. Not hard liqueur of course, or anything remotely alcoholic as per Liam's request. Nor coffee, as none of them enjoyed it.<p>

Instead it was silly fruity drinks made to quench thirst like no one's business, full of sugar and all sorts of other additives to make it really sweet and tangy.

"So I was thinking." Rikarde began, taking a sip from his drink.

"Did it hurt?" Cassi grinned from behind her glass. Rikarde shot her a look even as Liam chuckled.

"Yes, it's why I had to take two more bayor then usual." He grunted. "No, I was thinking about... This entire thing with your Lucemon."

"What do you need Azrael to do?" She sighed, shaking her head. "He's going to complain endlessly when you ask him to do it, you know?"

"Maybe. I was hoping he'd be in for trying to fool Dagomon." Rikarde shrugged.

"How are you going to do that?" Liam asked, taking a sip from his drink. "We haven't been in any sort of contact with that guy. How would we go about trying to fool him?"

"We have Azrael leave in the most flashy way possible." Rikarde stated. "Have him lead the aerial forces, but from a distance. Have Dolce there to try and make it seem like she's actually leading. And when Dagomon gets good and complacent, have Azrael come down to blast every single flier bad guy at full power."

"Well, see, the last bit he's definitely going to complain endlessly about." Cassi sighed as she stirred her drink. "You guys saw the fight he put up for one of the limiters being taken off of him. He's so scared he's going to be like he was in his past life. He doesn't want to risk using his full power."

"You're his partner though, so couldn't you stabilize him with your DigiSoul instead?" Rikarde asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I'd have tried it a loooooong time ago, but he never even wanted to attempt it." She gave a bit of a sad chuckle. Rikarde saw how much an affect having to live with this issue was causing her. Her dejected tone was reminding him a little too much of a similar case. "That's how afraid he is, he won't even trust me to try and help him. I can bring it up to him again tonight, but I think it'll just going to devolve to arguing, _again_."

"Then bring me or Liam along to talk with him." Rikarde stated. "Or hell, even get Commander Magnus. Guy's going nuts being cooped up in that room, even if he needs to be there to recover. He's pretty good at talking people into doing things for their own good."

Cassi pursed her lips for a moment, before downing her drink in one gulp. "We'll have to see." She said in a noncommittal way.

A series of beeps went off at that moment, and Rikarde and Liam both pulled watches out of their pockets.

"Well, looks like we'll have to put off talk of this plan until later." Rikarde sighed, putting his watch away. "It's about time for that meeting with those DigiDestined. I'm not going to enjoy this."

"Well if you'd stop arguing with one of them, things would be a whole lot more enjoyable wouldn't they?" Liam asked pleasantly. Rikarde just glared at him for the snark.

"I guess it's back to the coal mines for me, then." Cassi sighed as well, though a wry grin was on her face.

"Yeah, good luck with giving all the grunts awkward boners while me and Liam are hard at work making plans so we don't all die." Rikarde rolled his eyes as the three of them made their way out of the office, going their separate ways. 

* * *

><p>Mimi had <em>finally<em> persuaded Izzy to let DATS talk with Gennai during this meeting, so they were setting up a three way call between them, Gennai and the Wisemon that Christopher had wanted them to talk with.

Rikarde tapped the table in front of him as he waited for this to happen, staring off into space with a drawn expression on his face as he was yammered at by his official-unofficial second in command.

Liam had been coordinating the air and sea forces, but had a hard time. "Seriously man, Fyuria is crazy. I think it's all the data stored inside her or something, but she just loves to fight right now. You think it's a rebellious phase?" Fyuria was referring to his Fanbeemon, whom he had recently named, though now Ranamon was bugging him constantly about giving her a nickname, even though everyone called her Rana already.

Rikarde shrugged. "Honestly, the best thing you could do with her right now is give her something she can take all that energy out on. Warren and Leonard have been good for me since I got them. The only time they get fight happy is when they're Champion."

"I see." Liam said. "And then Rana's all pissed cause she doesn't have a nickname, even though I'm still pretty sure she isn't officially my Digimon, and Commander White just laughed at me over the phone when I tired to talk to her about it."

"That I can't help you with." Rikarde's lip twitched slightly, wanting to quirk into a smile he hadn't had in days. "I named all of my Digimon as soon as I got them. I was hashing out a name with Seadramon before he decided to just have me call him by the name his parents gave him, Nemo. You could just ask her if she already has a name that you can use."

"She said to call her Ai. That's Love in Japanese. I'm pretty sure she's just trolling me."

"Well, you said she originally came from Japan, right? She could be serious about that being her name."

"She's basically telling me to love her or something. It's like a really bad joke or pun. At least, when you use it for a name it seems to be. Unless you write it the other way and then it means loneliness or something. I don't know it's been a while since I've brushed up on Japanese." He turned to the DigiDestined. "That reminds me, how are you all so good at speaking English? You take classes or something?"

There was a pause before Davis spoke up, "I uh, wasn't paying much attention but I think Izzy told us Gennai added an algo-whatever-the-hell to our Digivices so that when we came into contact with someone who spoke a different language than us, our speech would be translated before the sound waves traveled over to you or something? It went over my head at the time, but Gennai said it was in the case something like this happened again."

"Algorithm." Izzy said.

"Yeah that thing. Whatever the hell it means."

"Ah, computer stuff and programs." Liam said. "Crazy stuff that."

"The more I learn about Digital World technology, the more I wonder how the hell it even works." Rikarde was frowning again. "I think this breaks several laws of physics."

"Well, the Digital World has consistently shown a lack of concern for the laws of physics, considering how many times they've jumped it in a dark alley at night and violated them." Davis said, wiggling his hands everywhere in meaningful gestures.

"_Daisuke_." Mimi frowned at him, the tone of her voice disapproving.

"Oh come on, we both know that's what happens." Davis whined.

"That's still a horrible analogy." Mimi shook her head.

"You know what another horrible one is? Anal. Event. Horizon."

"... What does that even mean?" Joe asked, though he looked really didn't want to actually know.

"What does algo-whatever-the-hell mean?" Davis asked back.

"_Algorithm_." Izzy corrected again.

"Yeah that." Davis snapped his fingers and pointed at the redhead.

"It means math." Liam explained.

"Oh man, I hate math. It's the one thing that consistently kicks my ass."

"Anyway," Mimi sighed, shaking her head. "I've actually been living in the US for a while. My parents moved here after my first adventure in the Digital World, which is when I was around ten, so I have a firm grasp on English now."

"Wow. They got to you early, didn't they?" Rikarde raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well you can certainly see the American influence in her clothing choices." Liam said. "You do know we're not actually that flamboyant, right?"

"Say that to all the people who are rich or want to be rich." Mimi rolled her eyes. "My parents got wicked lucky and won a lottery ticket for about a million dollars when we moved over here, and they did the smart thing and invested it in things. After that, well," She waved at herself. "Here I am, being all 'flamboyant'."

"Lucky." Rikarde grumbled under his breath. "I want a winning lottery ticket."

"Okay, ready to call." Izzy interrupted their conversation, and the huge screen in the meeting room was taken up by a split screen call that was answered by an unfamiliar man with brown hair and white robes, and a man whose face was completely cloaked in shadow with brown robes. Yellow eyes peeked out from the shadows of this man's hood.

"Whoa, you did not tell me you guys knew Obi Wan freakin' Kenobi." Rikarde stared at the white robed man in surprise.

"Who?" Said man looked confused by this greeting.

"That's Wisemon you idiot." Liam said with a bop to Rikarde gawking head.

"No, that one is Darth Siddeus." Rikarde pointed at Wisemon, before moving his finger to point at the man in white robes. "The other guy is totally Obi Wan!"

"He's talking about characters from Earth movies. I'd suggest just ignoring it; they tend to go off on unrelated tangents over here." Izzy had the gall to look tired. After a moment, the white robed man nodded.

"It's been decades since I've kept up with real world cinema anyway. So, I take it we get to the heart of the matter?" The white robed man asked.

"If we could?" The brown robed man spoke up. "It is nice to see new faces to study, but I would like to get back to work setting things up on our end over here. Shoutmon has been antsy about opening up the portal for days now and goodness knows how much time we have left."

"Right. So in the interest of us saving time, let's leave out all the complications that will arise because of this contact, and just get to the meat of the matter." Gennai took a breath, gathering his thoughts. "Izzy told me you wanted me, him and Wisemon here to all coordinate opening a portal directly from the Real World to a pinpoint spot in the Digital World, and you want to know if it could be helped along by hijacking one that will be opened in the Real World with a D-3?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Rikarde stated. "Your kids here were pretty clear on what sort of cost in time and energy it would be to bring smaller groups back and forth between worlds with a smaller, computer made portal. We didn't have that sort of time a few days ago and we certainly don't now. We need 'em all in one big burst. So, can it be done?"

Gennai frowned for a moment, looking at the gathered humans in the room. After a moment, he spoke, "In a word; maybe."

"Well, it always was a long shot, but what are the percentage chances?" Liam sasked.

Gennai gave a bit of an undignified snort. "For one, we would need an exact reading of the portal. The last time this was tried, it was very hard on Ken's body from what I heard, and even if Iori and Daisuke over there have D-3's like him, without an exact reading they just would end up like him; laid up for several days with phantom pains."

The boys shivered slightly at the reminder of that event. Both it and the aftermath had not been fun.

"Not to mention you're asking them to hijack it so they can open it to a place they've never been to before. With Ken it was easier for him to open the gate to the Dark Ocean because he'd been there, twice! They do not have that familiarity. If we had the coordinates to the zone you were in, Wisemon-"

"If we are to pull off this plan, I will give the information required." The Digimon supplied.

"Thank you. But even then, he still has to open it on his side when the boys hijack it. It will take a level of precision that only someone in regular contact could pull off."

"I can just give Davis or Cody my Wrister." Christopher spoke up for the first time this evening. "They'll have a direct line to the King with it, and I can either get a new one or get back that one later when they're done with it. If it's still in one piece."

Gennai nodded. "After that, to calculate the true odds of success I would need to crunch a lot of numbers, and I do not think my time would best be spent on that. Even with the Digital World's most powerful calculator I would be stuck on it for days."

"Ah man, math kicks even your ass? Wow, that stuff must be like, the worst evil ever." Davis said, scratching his head.

"Even smart people need time to find the correct calculations, Davis." Liam said helpfully.

"So in other words, this plan might have ass odds of success, and could blow up in our faces if the slightest thing goes wrong?" Rikarde lifted an eyebrow.

"In a word," Gennai said, "Yes."

Rikarde was silent for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, I kinda already knew that, but yanno, some things just gotta be risked. Go big or go dead, yanno?"

"I don't think that's how the saying goes," Joe cut in.

"No, but that's what's probably going to happen whenever Dagomon decides to show his ugly octopus face." Rikarde rolled his eyes.

"Are we done with this meeting, then?" Wisemon asked. "If so, I would like to go back to working on things on my end."

"Break a leg." Liam said with a wave.

"Very well. It was a nice chat." Wisemon nodded politely at them all. "Gennai, I will get into contact with you later to share coordinates. Perhaps we can meet after this has all blown over and share theory?"

"I would be delighted." The Obi Wan Kenobi lookalike smiled back, before Wisemon's face blinked off and it was only him left. "I believe I've also said my piece. Though I will say, when Izzy told me he had gotten into contact with your organization of all things, I was rather surprised."

"So I gathered." Rikarde stated, looking blandly at the only redhead in the room. "So far I've been accused of everything under the sun, and my branch likened to people who like to devour live babies after stealing their candy."

Gennai looked embarrassed, though Izzy was still making a point not to meet the acting commander's eyes. "Well, I wouldn't go that far," He said. "But me and my order did have bad run-ins with yours in the past. I'm not surprised it extended to the DigiDestined when they began to crop up. We did have differing methods on how to deal with things."

"Right right, you guys have had this same conversation every day since you arrived, let it go." Liam said, annoyingly singing the last three words.

"It's been going on that long, has it?" Gennai looked between the two. Rikarde continued his bland stare while Izzy pointedly looked away from him. The man gave a sigh. "Well, I can't rightly step in to pacify this, but we can't have this going into the conflict, you two."

"I can work perfectly well with him, I just don't enjoy being constantly accused of things I never had a part in." Rikarde grunted, before standing from his seat. "Anyway, dude, you probably have things you still need to take care of, right? So go do them. We'll take care of our own issues here."

"Very well. Just don't kill each other over there, please." Gennai advised. "I don't think you kids would like doing Dagomon that favor."

With that, his face blipped off the screen, returning to the DATS logo on a blue backdrop.

"Sheesh, you guys need to take a page out of zen or chill or whatever the book of not being at each other's throats are, please." Liam said, standing up as well. "Neither of us are the bad guy, at least for now. So let's get this done, yeah?"

"As I said, I can do that perfectly well." Rikarde stated, bumping by his official-unofficial second in command. "All without being some weird personification of human virtues, too."

Izzy said nothing in reply, but the frown on his face was deeply set in when he left as well. Joe and Mimi watched him depart a little sadly, while Davis and Cody both looked rather off-put by this situation.

"I know we just keep apologizing about it, but we're sorry for how he's acting." Mimi sighed to Liam as they all got up to leave as well. "I've never known him to be this bitter or angry about anything, but..."

"DATS really hurt some friends of his." Joe sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Caught some people with their Digimon and separated them. It was easily fixed but that's still a traumatic experience to go through, you know?"

"Yeah well Rikarde's attitude isn't helping much. At least we can direct them in the right direction." Liam said with a sigh. 

* * *

><p>"You call that a fortified position? My partner's cats could set up something better! Break that down and set it back up, correctly this time!"<p>

Where Liam found Rikarde next was outside the HQ, watching Warren bark orders at DigiDestined, DATS agents and their Digimon combined. The Digimon was currently in his Champion level to make them take him seriously, because a doe-eyed worm thing just would not have the same sort of presence that Stingmon had. He seemed to be in his element here, even if it was something Rikarde had found rather surprising himself. He'd never taken his partner to be a commanding type, considering all the work they'd done together.

"You gonna try to talk to me about that teamwork shit again?" Rikarde asked Liam without turning to face him. "Because I keep giving you the same answer; as soon as Carrot-Top gets over his little issues that don't even pertain to me, I'll start being nicer to him. As it is, he can sit on those issues and rotate them."

"Yes yes, and as soon as you stop being such an asshole he'll consider helping. You see how that works? Being an asshole just makes other people respond the same way." Liam said.

"Yeah well, at the risk of sounding like a child he was the one who started throwing around accusations first." Rikarde stated. "I ain't doing what another insulted person wouldn't. And besides, I don't think he's the type of person who would twiddle his thumbs like that while millions of peoples' lives are on the line."

"True, but that still doesn't mean you fuel his fire with DATS. You're clearly much better than that. Besides, Japan is crazy. Who knows what DATS is like there. For all we know they dissect tamers or something weird like that." Liam laughed, but then sobered up quickly when Rikarde shot him a really severe look that was out of place on his bearded, doughy face. "Well okay not really, but there is a pretty big culture shock. Just remember Japanese are usually much more respectful in the ways they talk and act. If Izzy acts like that in spite of his upbringing, it means they really did something horrible to him or his friends."

"Okay, yeah, that is a good point and I feel for the dude." Rikarde looked over at Liam again, that severe look still on his face. "But that still gives him no right to take it out on you, me or the men and women that work here and risk our lives daily. We're not the same people that did whatever made him so mad to him or his. His behavior is uncalled for and to be frank, I'm not going to let him talk like that about me and mine while he's in _my_ house."

"That doesn't mean you refuse to extend your hand." Liam said. "It's pretty silly to expect a compromise when you refuse to even try. Basically you're acting the same as him, and your reason isn't even half as good. Not saying his reason is great either, but still." Liam sighed. "Look, there's a saying, and it applies to this situation pretty well. If you don't want to say anything fine, but stop responding to provocation like that. It's only making you out to be the villain in his eyes."

"Heh," Rikarde chuckled sourly. "To be honest, I couldn't give any less of a shit about his opinion of me. He walked into this place expecting to us to be worse than Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein put together. Nothing I did before when I _tried_ to accommodate him seemed to matter, so why should I treat him any different than how he's treated me until this point?"

"That's his mistake to make, not ours." Liam said. "Though of course I'd love for things to go better than they have been with our relations..."

"Yeah, you and me both." Rikarde snorted, turning his attention back out to the group of DATS, DigiDestined and Digimon all working together to get things done. It was a miracle these things were happening with so little bad blood despite two of the leadership among their conglomerate being so dead set on hating each other so openly. "But we can do little to change others minds if they are set on believing something. As long as it doesn't get in the way of kicking Dagomon to the curb and stopping millions of innocent deaths from ever happening, let him hate me for all I care."

"Just don't give him more ammunition." Liam advised, but was answered with a grunt. The man gave a sigh. "At least then his reasons won't make enough sense for your pissing match to continue. It'll help the troops a lot more with their morale, believe me. Especially since most of them, despite being under _our_ command, are considered rogue." He continued. "That and it gives me one less thing to worry about. I'm getting the feeling Ranamon isn't going to leave. Ever."

"Ah yes, your woman problems. I bet they're near the top of _your_ priorities." Rikarde grinned at Liam's misery and offered no sympathy. "Tell me, is Fyuria going to form an unrequited but obvious crush on you, too? Or is she still strictly you and Lady Witch's battle-forged progeny?"

"I swear to God I will _smack_ you." Liam threatened. "Just because I almost believe Mordin's crackpot idea that Digimon are evolving to become more humanoid does not mean I want to bang one. Besides, we're **partners**, not... _partners_. Wow that words can mean completely different things."

Rikarde snorted. "Welcome to the English language."

"Yes well. That's my stance on it. I don't really plan to change my mind either." Liam said. "Besides, Dolce has..." He trailed off. "Well, I doubt a relationship built on something like that would work even if we were interested in it."

"Yeah, plus what would happen if you broke up?" Rikarde pursed his lips. "Far as I know, all DATS agents live with their partners. That would be hella awkward."

"Definitely." Liam said. "I've got to go run the coordination drills now. Take care alright?"

"Hey, I'm not going to break any time soon." Rikarde waved him off. "Made out of sterner stuff than that. Go and get these kids working on their teamwork."

The rest of what Rikarde wanted to say was left unspoken, '_And stop trying to make me bend over backwards for that asshole._' 

* * *

><p><strong>Afternote: First off, I want to say I actually wanted to do a preface for this chapter to say what I'm going to say after this, but after I've been doing afternotes so long I thought that would be really out of place.<strong>

**Next, before anyone makes an assumption I would like to say I do not hate Izzy. At all. It's just out of all of the DigiDestined, Izzy happens to have the most connections outside of the main group in Japan, so it would make sense he would have friends that did have unfortunate run-ins with DATS that ended up with them being separated from their Digimon and probably mind-wiped, to disastrous consequences. Since most people being neuralized usually only have encountered Digimon for a short time, the erasure probably wouldn't do much in the long run. Probably lose an hour in the least, a couple weeks at most. But these people? They probably lost years of their life, which is a little more than just 'traumatizing', Joe, sheesh. This of course would lead to stipulations on the use of the neuralizer, which of course made many Commanders outside of Japan, such as Commander White earlier, realize that Digimon was not going to be something they could hide really easily. I could go on, but it'd be rather spoilery and this note is becoming long enough as is. :P**

**Sorry if I didn't detail what exactly went on to lead to Rikarde and Izzy's disagreements, but if I did that this chapter would be a lot longer, and I already had to cut this thing in half. You'll get to getting to see the rest of this, renamed to be chapter ten, next week.**

**In other news however, I'm going to be losing my Beta Reader for a while soon. So that means this fic will probably have to be updated much slower after next chapter, unless someone else would like to cover for him in the meantime**.


	10. Chapter 10

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**

**Chapter 10: Of Mice and Men**

* * *

><p>The sudden weight of one of his partners climbing his leg almost surprised Rikarde after Liam left. He didn't have to wonder who it was, as Warren was still drilling the new recruits. Leonard did not seem to want to socialize much with anyone since Fyuria had Digivolved. He had fallen into a funk since she had 'grown up' and had become so much more aggressive. Poor guy. It probably brought up bad memories for him.<p>

He turned his head toward his yellow and blue worm. "Yes, what is it?"

Leonard hesitated for a moment, before asking, "Can I visit her?"

Rikarde stared at him for a moment before deciphering in his mind what he meant. Then he frowned. "I don't know, Leo. You know how it gets when we do. Plus she might be really antsy from all the activity..."

"She's still family." Leonard said softly, seeming to frown. "If things go south... I want to at least say good bye, yanno?"

That brought up something Rikarde had been refusing to do; he had not contacted his own family at all, out of the stubborn opinion that he wouldn't need too and they would beat down Dagomon without a single casualty. He had the confidence they'd make it out and win, and so he wasn't ever going to call up his Dad and tell him, "Hey, I think this time I won't make it and everyone on the West Coast is going to die in a blitzkrieg headed by a giant demonic octopus. Just thought you should know, kay love you bye." It just wasn't something he wanted to do.

Leonard wasn't him and had different wants and needs. He couldn't very well deny his own partner what he wanted; even if Rikarde felt in the end it would amount to nothing.

"Very well." He sighed, tapping his cane on the ground once before turning back to the building and hobbling back inside. His aches were getting worse by the minute, and he knew they wouldn't be getting better. Stupid portals. 

* * *

><p>Rikarde hated this room. This was one of the rooms they kept unruly Digimon, specifically one certain Digimon for the last eight years. The room well worn from the use, and by well worn Rikarde meant completely wrecked.<p>

What had once been padded walls had their guts ripped out, the foam torn to shreds everywhere. They had stopped replacing the walls by this point, due to the fact that whenever new ones were installed they were ripped apart within days. The occupant was currently restrained, the belts making it barely able to squirm and the muzzle to stop it from using attacks and biting people.

It hurt him to see her like this, probably not as much as it hurt Warren and Leonard, but it still hurt him. She had come from the same egg they had, and she had been just as adorable and fun loving as they had been as Leafmon and Minomon.

Yes, that's right. All the reports were wrong, though only by a request from him directly to command, as he felt it was personal information no one needed to know. He hadn't had just two Digimon, but three - triplets. Nemo was technically not his third, not really, but rather his fourth. But he didn't like talking about her for a simple reason; after she Digivolved to her current state, Layla the Dokunemon had gone insane.

He didn't know what happened, to be honest. She'd seemed fine for the first couple of days, but then she became despondent and unresponsive for a week. Then she started screaming about one thing or another and she began attacking innocent bystanders, fellow tame Digimon and basically anything that moved. It had hurt Leonard and Warren greatly, but when she turned her wrath upon him - _him_, her partner, the one she was supposed to protect - they tied her up and knocked her out.

Nothing they had attempted helped. She'd scream and rant and rave and cry, and attack anything that moved (and many things that didn't, like the walls of her cell), but _nothing_ helped.

It hurt to see her like this, but Leonard wanted to see her, the poor big hearted fool. He was on the cot she was tied down to with her, laying next to her side and nuzzling against her like they had when they had been mere Minomon, not saying anything. For once, she wasn't violently struggling against her bonds. In fact, she seemed to be reciprocate his gesture, as though she knew what was going on outside of her cell and was terrified.

As he watched, somehow this strange silence gave Rikarde a feeling of hope. Perhaps not for the battle to come, but for the future where all four of them would be together again.

* * *

><p>"So then, has Fyuria calmed down?" Liam asked, looking at for once an exhausted Ranamon and calm as ever Dolce.<p>

"Yes, it seems she's intent on zooming around at full strength nearly all the time." Dolce said. "She's much too energetic."

"Even I've got trouble keeping up with her. Though I'm on two legs while she's all flying around so that's part of it." Ranamon said, sinking lower into the bed as she said so.

"Everything's going well. We should be ready to face Dagomon soon enough." Liam said.

"With your faithful Ai leading the charge, right?" Ranamon said, smiling to herself.

"Do you really want me to call you that?" Liam asked, raising an eyebrow. "I was convinced you were joking."

"Believe it or not, it's a nice name." Ranamon said, raising one hand and waggling a finger at him, tutting all the while. "Though yes, I was half joking originally, I like the sound of it. Makes me feel like I'm welcome, you know? I haven't felt that in a long time."

Liam didn't know how to respond to that. Ranamon certainly bounced a lot between Tamers, yes, but he had never really known why or her feelings on the matter; considering how she acted, all bubbly, silly and cheerful it had seemed to slide off of the Aquan like, well, water. Had she ever been a welcome part of anyone's team before? It made him and Dolce feel like they had judged Ai a little too harshly. After a few minutes of silence the sound sounds of sleep could be heard from the bed, as Ranamon rested her eyes. Fyuria slept next to her, buzzing softly.

"Ai, huh..." Liam mumbled, thinking to himself.

"Dagomon isn't... him is he?" Dolce spoke up, for the first time taking a stern tone with her partner. Liam looked over at her and saw she was looking directly at him, seriousness in her eyes.

"No. You know as well as I the last time he ever appeared was in Japan." Liam said. "And even with the new clearance I have with DATS, the file you want is denied access to me. I do have an idea for that though."

"Oh?" Dolce asked. "I'm guessing it involves something not entirely legal."

"Well, technically speaking no." Liam said. "But it'll get us what we want. What you want, I mean."

"Yes well, let's not rush it. We'll ask after all is said and done, that way we don't ruin the operation." Dolce said, sighing gently. "No matter how much I want it."

"Alright." Liam said. Dolce pulled her hat down over her eyes, after shooting Liam a soft smile. He turned and left the room, figuring it was better to let the girls sleep. Once outside, he pulled out a cellphone he had just taken from one of the stores. "I'm assuming you got all that. I did make sure to replace all my phone parts, so don't worry about this transmission being hacked. Think you can find what I need, Izzy?"

"I caught it all." The red head replied. The sound of his thunder typing was reverberating in the connection as he spoke. "I'll do everything I can to research this, and Christopher has proven to be quite a resource of information on this subject. In fact... Ah, I can't explain it well over this. Come to the lab, we'll be able to explain things with video assistance. Also, tell your commander that his passwords suck. Anyone with enough determination and a good enough connection can hack into this system."

"I think I'll stay silent. If they weren't easy to hack I might get in trouble. You are doing all of this under my name, after all. Trying to avoid jail, if I can." Liam said. "Be there soon." He flipped the phone closed, and after ensuring the door to his room was locked, walked down the hall towards the lab. It took him barely five minutes to reach it, and luckily he didn't run into anyone. Once inside, he spotted Izzy and Christopher instantly. It seems the blonde boy just enjoyed appearing wherever he felt like.

He didn't seem to be enjoying his current project, however involved in it as he was. The blond was staring intensely at two separate screens that showed looping footage, one that looked like it had been captured via a shaky news cam, while the other looked like security camera footage that had been taken from the recent sea side battle with the second vanguard of Dagomon's army.

The one captured by news cam was of a battle on the Fuji TV complex, against a blue skinned man in a rather rich outfit, an aristocratic suit with a high collared red cape and red eye mask. He was laughing as he held a strange object up into the air at the same time the Shadow of Dagomon revealed the odd device before it had made Ebidramon Scorpio Mode.

"Stop there." Christopher suddenly barked, and Izzy complied, entering the commands to freeze the picture. "Zoom in on those." The command was followed again, and the weird item the man held and the device in Dagomon's possession were brought more into focus. "Can you clear that up? The resolution just got crappy."

"Yes, give me a minute." Izzy sighed, almost tiredly. "Hello, Liam." He greeted the newcomer without turning around.

Christopher however, did. "Sorry I hijacked this, but I needed to find out what happened when I interrupted your fight." He stated. "I've had a bad feeling about it since I got here, and that form those ten Digimon took brought back bad memories."

"Not a problem. Like I said, it's not the priority for the moment. Any edge we can get over Dagomon is welcome in my book." Liam smiled.

Christopher nodded before turning back to the pictures - thankfully cleared up by that point. He took a deep breath at the sight of the items. "Well." He said after a few seconds of silence. "Holy mackerel on a shit sundae."

"I'm not even going to pretend like I understand until you've explained." Liam stated.

"Yeah, and you're not going to like it. Those items Cape Man and Dagomon got are tiny little _huge problems_ me and my friends like to call Darkness Loaders."

"Loaders. Like what you call your Digivices?" Izzy didn't seem to like where this was going.

"Yeah, only ours are Xros Loaders. And both of these were made by the same person, so you could say that what Cape Man and Dagomon have in those pictures are Digivices." Izzy wheeled around and stared at him in shock.

Liam frowned at this news. "If they're called 'Darkness' Loaders, that must mean they're pretty bad. So that thing, it's what makes them able to forcibly absorb other Digimon right?"

"Or cruelly combine them together with others with no regard to their own will or safety, yes. The 'Divine Generals' we faced before defeating Bagramon all had those things, but there were only supposed to be six of them." Chistopher looked like he wanted to pace, but he held back. "I have no idea how these two had them in the first place. Dagomon I can probably understand if he's part of the remains of the Bagra Empire, we never did find all of them. But Cape Man, I'm not sure. What did you say his name was again?"

"I think Izzy would know better than I. I've only heard passing mention of him at best, and horror stories at worst." Liam replied.

"All of them told by us, no doubt." Izzy gave a humorless laugh. "He was one of our toughest enemies, perhaps tougher than the Dark Masters were. By the time we got to _them_ we could all Warp Digivolve our partners, and they had no dramatic power increases when we fought them. Meanwhile, _he_ just kept on getting stronger and stronger, to the point where he could swat six Ultimate level Digimon's attacks out of their air. We were lucky we got Kari when we did, I don't think we could have beaten him if we hadn't." He sighed after a moment. "His name was Myotismon."

Christopher had merely looked bored up until the end. When the name was dropped, he very subtly freaked out, his eyes widening, his face paling and a cold sweat forming on his brow. He gave a very vicious curse as he glared at the monitor holding the image of the Dark Aristocrat.

"I think I know how he managed to get his hands on a Darkness Loader." He stated.

"You do?" Liam asked, approaching the other side of the keyboard, so all three were now lined up with the computer screens. "You're not telling me you fought him in the Digital World are you?"

"I did, or at least a past life of his." Christopher continued his vicious glare at the still framed image. "Or maybe his ancestor, I don't know. We never found _his_ Darkness Loader, unlike the others. But either way it happened, I knew a _Neo_ Myotismon. And he was just as bad, if not worse, than the guy Izzy had been talking about."

Izzy blinked for a moment, before opening his own laptop to pull out his Digimon Database. "Neo Myotismon? I see no mention of that as a form for this particular species. He should only be able to Digivolve to Venom Myotismon."

"Yeah well, I fought him. Greymon, MailBirdramon and myself bear the scars of fighting him." Christopher said. "Especially since he absorbed them for a day."

Izzy balked in surprise while Christopher pressed a button on the keyboard to get the footage from the battle with Myotismon to keep going. Dark chains of energy flew from the Darkness Loader in his hand to grab all of his fallen minions, and one snaked out to grab the white cat Digimon next to the small girl still in the shot. The footage paused there again, just as someone in a blue cape was beginning to dive in to take it instead.

"From the looks of it, he tried that again." The blond frowned.

"Sheesh, I'm not a fan of watching kids fight for their lives." Liam said. "I mean, I know you all survived, but damn that's hard to see."

"Far as I know, that's why your DATS was made, wasn't it?" Christopher asked Liam, raising an eyebrow at him. The color was just starting to return to his face. "So that more grown up people could do what these kids are doing so that way they don't have to be exposed to this sort of stuff?"

Izzy grunted. "So far they've been doing a less than stellar job of it, if so. They can't even get to the Digital World themselves, so we've still had to keep doing our job when threats to both worlds cropped up."

"Sorry." Liam said. "But yeah, that's the idea. Of course, now you guys are adults yourselves. And the number of new younger people that get Digimon has decreased quite a bit. Not counting the force you brought with you, I mean. Like a... general statistic or something."

"The more people are exposed to Digimon, the more DigiDestined are chosen." Izzy said. "Our numbers are not going to stop increasing, in fact I'd have to say it's swelling more as time goes on. Those people we brought with us are only those we could contact in the short amount of time we had, we'd have brought more if it weren't such short notice. The only reason you don't see more is because you people tend to grab them, beat them up, erase their memories and send their Digimon back to the Digital World if they come out about having a partner."

Christopher gave the red head a frown. "Okay, I can appreciate a grudge, but that's soul destroying bitter blackness you've got there."

"It's their policy." Izzy stated, thick vehemence dripping from those three words.

"Maybe in Japan, but as far as I know not in America. King Shoutmon wouldn't be allied with them if that was the case."

"Well, unlike you and Daisuke, I've had no contact with this king so all I can take is your word for it, and considering what I know has happened _I can't believe it_."

"All I and others in New York have done is given the kids a DIC, and encouraged them to not go seeking danger. The Digimon that choose them seem to act more like very intelligent pets. Haven't had any problems myself. Though if you get to the Bronx you have to deal with the Digimon gangs." Liam cut in to try and keep an argument from breaking out. He didn't want this group to be any more divided as it was.

"Digimon... _Gangs_?" Izzy actually looked appalled. "... Kari is going to be heartbroken to hear about that."

"It's merely one of the problems they face here." Christopher shrugged. He seemed to be catching on to what Liam wanted, as he kept any frustration he felt with Izzy out of his voice. "As far as I know, they're actually fairly lax on the Digimon and human partnerships over here. I think they can be a little harder to be honest, since as far as I know Digimon partnership is becoming worse than the handgun epidemic, since practically anyone can get a partner. I've heard even the Mob is starting to get a few; I know _that_ will end very poorly for everyone involved. The King is thinking about getting involved in this."

"That's something I'm trying to do." Liam said. "Though admittedly not something I should be in charge of, I'm putting together a special taskforce. I think it's time we at least got Digimon away from bad influences like those gangs I mentioned. And of course deal with threats like Dagomon and Myotismon at the same time."

Izzy stared hard at him for a few long moments. "I'll hold you too it, then." The redhead finally said. "At least you're the most honest and least insufferable DATS agent I've ever met. If you can pull this off, maybe the branches back in Japan will learn something from you."

"I'd welcome that." Liam said. "I've always liked Japanese stuff. My dad is totally big on this tea called like ootari or something. Also studied Japanese in College. Bet I'm terrible at it now though, I haven't practiced at all in years."

"The only thing I've ever learned from Japan besides the language is the fact they like some weird shit, like tentacles with their schoolgirls." Christopher said, causing Izzy to stare at him in horror. The shit had a little grin on his face now. "First time I told Taiki that, poor kid couldn't talk to me for a week. I was too busy laughing my ass off to even respond to if he did, though. The expression on his face was _priceless_."

Liam couldn't help chuckling as well, despite the fact that now he and Christopher were receiving the best death glare Izzy could muster.

* * *

><p>Cassi thought all the drama everyone is getting into was goddamn stupid. While the boys were off doing silly things like making plans, she was busting her ass keeping everything else running smoothly, even if she could have handed everything off to that fellow that was the same rank as Rikarde. She wanted to have a personal hand in things, however, and that hand was velvet covered with an iron grip.<p>

As of the current moment, the young woman found herself pestering the blond DigiDestined that was Willis, while her own partner fretted somewhere behind her about something or other.

"No, no, see, it goes like this." She purposefully pressed herself against his back as she corrected him on the usage of one of the computers being used to monitor the activity of Dagomon's forces out at sea. She didn't know whose bright idea it was to let the guy in on this, no matter how good with computers he normally was – the one who worked this station was going to get a dressing down from her later. And then tied up and paraded around so everyone could see them in their underwear.

When she said dressing down, she meant it _literally_.

For his part, Willis didn't blush; but he did look rather uncomfortable. He wasn't used to girls making overt moves on him, it seems, the poor kid.

"I just did that, though." He began to say, but she tutted him into silence again.

"I began my job doing this shit, kiddo, and that wasn't what you did. You almost shut this thing down and it would have taken a day we didn't have to calibrate it again. And calibrating is a bitch, no matter how good at it you get." She pressed harder against his back for a moment before standing back up straight, smoothing out her shirt and miniskirt. "Now try again; if you ever plan on working these things with us as a full time job, you're going to need to know what to do."

"If I do, will I get you coaching me again?" He asked with a bit of snark, though Cassi only gave him a small grin.

"Well," She began saucily, placing her hands on his shoulders as she leaned her bust into the back of his head. "We'll have to see. I'm apparently becoming part of a team, and I guess I can put in a request for a cute junior like you-"

"Okay, no, uh-uh, _none of that_." Azrael finally broke into the conversation, grabbing her by the arm. He pulled her roughly away from Willis, leaving the poor boy spinning in the chair behind them as he led her off forcefully.

"What do you think you're doing?" Cassi all but shrieked as he tugged her into the maze of hallways in the building. Azrael snorted angrily.

"Taking you back to where we're staying so we can get you into something respectable." The boy stated harshly. "I've told you I didn't want you dressing like this, and you went and did it anyway! Well guess what, you've had your fun giving all these assholes awkward boners, so we're getting you into three different sweaters and pants _right now_."

"Like hell we are!" Cassi pulled her hand from his almost crushing grip and glared him down when the angel paused to turn toward her. "Besides, I don't see why I have to listen to what you want me to do when a certain one of us has been lying to the other since we became partnered!" Azrael began to open his mouth, "And if you say what I think you're going to say I will castrate you, because I know that's a thing I can definitely do to you now!"

His mouth shut with a click, and he looked away with a grimace. "… I don't see why it's so important…"

"Yeah well, _I DO_!" She all but shouted at him, leaning in so close she almost head butted him. "Two years, Azrael, two freaking years and all this time you were lying to me about the fact you have _apparently fully functional __male anatomy_! And I've let you have free reign, allowed you to see me naked-"

"Not like I had a choice!" Azrael protested. "You're the one who likes to walk around in her birthday suit!"

"_AND_ I've believed every lie you told me about how Digimon reproduced, or rather that they couldn't!" She spat. "I don't even know how much else you could have lied, if you lied about that! Not to mention this trust issue of yours where you won't let me even try to help you, so you don't need those damned limiters anymore! Why should I trust you when you clearly don't trust me?!"

He was becoming distressed by her yelling, and her closeness, and the looming scariness she was exuding right there and then. The animal brain in him, something far more in control of a Digimon than a human, even one nearly as human as him and perhaps because of that, was screaming at him to flee or just outright end the danger – but those were thoughts he expelled with no small amount of effort. Even if she was displeased with him, had her trust in him shaken because of a lie, he couldn't – and wouldn't – do anything to harm her directly. That didn't mean he couldn't get angry with her, however.

"Really? You're getting into that now? Well news flash, I haven't been able to 'trust' _you_ since we _met_!" He all but yelled back. "Dressing like you do, acting like you do, like at any moment you'd take a man or woman and just _do_ them right then and there? Or better yet, when you started off that disgusting habit of walking around naked when no one else but me is there? I couldn't 'trust' you not to use me like a disposable man, Cassi! 'Oh, because we're partners and you've got working man-bits maybe we should also maybe add _that_ on top of everything else!'" Now he was the one who spat, while Cassi recoiled from his words. The bad feelings weren't going to stop pouring out now, however, two years of problems just came blasting on out, like the world's most disgusting and festering dam. "I couldn't 'trust' _you_ to not treat me like that! I still can't! That's why I lied! That's why I kept up that lie! I'm not a toy, Cassi, and ever since we've become partners you've always treated me like one – grabbing me like a stuffed animal, playing with my ears, dressing me up in stupid outfits I told you I hated-"

"Hey, I haven't done that last one for a couple months now!" Cassi protested this time.

"IT WAS STILL EMBARRASSING! I'm not a plaything, and I do not appreciate it! Do you now how sensitive these," he flapped his head-wings for a moment, "are? Do you know how fun it is to pull on them like you do? Do you know how awkward it is for me when you scratch them and make them feel good? I'm not your _dogs_, and I thank the gods every day I'm not because you'd do even worse things to me if I was!"

"Hey, that's not fair!" She protested again. At this point, neither of them noticed Rikarde come out of a room close by to them in the hall, obviously attracted by the yelling. He looked confused and on edge about what was going on.

"LIKE IT'S NOT FAIR THAT YOU'RE CALLING OUT THE LIE I TOLD TO PROTECT MYSELF? THAT I DIDN'T TRUST YOU NOT TO JUST USE ME AND THROW ME AWAY?!" She winced at the volume of his voice. "Oh, and do you think those DATS agents would have let me, an ex-evil overlord, become partners with a young woman if they knew I could possibly _breed_? No, they'd have zapped me and killed me _again_ long before they allowed you to take me home! So I got working bits, yeah, it's real fun having to protect myself every day down there, especially from the girl who is supposed to mean the most to me!"

"Azrael," Cassi began, trying to get him to stop, but it was too late.

"I was terrified, you know? For so long I've been terrified to ever tell you because I know the first thing that would have jumped into your mind would have been 'Yay I can screw him now!' Because sex is _apparently_ the most important thing to you, and not how I'd've felt doing it! Because your needs are the most important thing to you, and your wants and needs are things everyone needs to cater too!"

"I'm sorry." Those words made him stop, finally. He looked at her, angry tears and a frown marring his face, and saw she looked close to crying too. "I'm sorry. If I had known any of this bothered you I'd have tried to be better, but you never told me! If you had told me I'd have tried to be better!"

"Yeah." He scoffed bitterly. "You just never thought the fact I was a living, breathing creature meant I wouldn't like all the demeaning things you've done to me? That it wouldn't make me hate having to put up with you and your constant nonsense? That I'd have just gone along with it like those two stupid animals your parents keep in your house? Hah hah freaking _hah_. You aren't any better than those morons that think anything other than humans are playthings, and I can't take it anymore."

"What do you mean?" She looked alarmed.

"This would be where a married couple would be looking for a divorce." Azrael held up a hand to the ceiling. "However, in my case, it means I'm just done!"

"Azrael wait!" The girl reached out to him as she tried to rush over to the angel boy. Azrael would have chosen that exact time to blast the ceiling if a hand coated in blue and gold DigiSoul hadn't clamped down around his wrist. He looked to his side in surprise and saw another one smash right into his face.

He stumbled into a wall and found himself pinned there by those glowing hands, and both he and his partner stared at Rikarde in shock. The look on his face was frightening.

"Settle the hell down, boy." He stated. "We're going to discuss these issues in a calm fashion instead of throwing emotions around and trying to blow up parts of the building, or so help me I will knock you out and throw you in the brig. Which, lucky for me, we're right in the correct wing that holds a few cells."

Cassi slumped slightly in relief, because she had a feeling Azreal really would have left and there was already enough drama being thrown around.

* * *

><p>Liam sighed as he sat next to the computer, the plans he had been working on all but forgotten. Mordin was currently prattling through the phone (he had to remember to get Commander White back for this some day soon).<p>

"Very possible that in near future Digimon evolution will only have one stage. Believe Lucemon is first true instance of it, but take friend Witchmon - Dolce, whatever it is you call her - offspring will likely start in Champion form. Or what we consider Champion form. Digimon studies up to this point be completely useless soon. Likely have Champion or Ultimate normal form, which will grow like humans. What is referred to as Mega form will remain, but more dormant. Think of an adrenaline rush parent gets when protecting child, only Digimon version is Mega!"

"That's... that's great, Mordin." Liam said with a sigh, begging for someone to save him from this conversation. As if on que another call began begging for his attention. "I gotta go." He said, not allowing Mordin a chance to ask what was going on before hanging up. Then he quickly pulled up a new conversation, where the grumpy face of Rikarde could be seen in full display. "What's going on?"

"Azrael nearly flew the coop." The man stated.

Liam stared. His eyes widened a little and his breath caught in his throat, and for once something seemed to actually get under his skin besides Cassi pelting him with airplane peanuts a few days ago. Then he gave a mighty exhale and slapped a hand over his face, grumbling out a quiet "Aw crap."

"Something _finally_ get through that unflappable exterior of yours, eh? Good, thought you were a goddamn robot." Rikarde chuckled.

"Well that was an inconvenience that we could nary afford." Liam sighed. His unflappability had returned in record time. "What exactly happened?"

"He and Cassi got into a really bad argument. I was in the area and heard most of it." Rikarde said. There was some talking in the background behind him. "It seemed to be about that lack of trust issue that Cassi talked about, plus some other personal things I wouldn't want to repeat in good faith. I managed to interrupt before it got to an irreparable point, and they're patching up right now. I seem to have knocked some screws of his back into place, because we're also telling him The Plan and he's not freaking out nearly as bad."

"What?" Liam asked, raising an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"I punched him into a wall when he was about to start blasting the local area. What else?"

Liam considered for a moment, before he shrugged. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What, that I'm ballsy enough to punch a Digimon? I told you, Dr. Damon took me under his wing and you saw me punch out the Shadow Octopus."

"That might be it, yes." Liam shook his head. "So, what now? I take it Azrael is still going to lead the aerial unit from a distance like you said, with Dolce being the puppet we put in place to make an attractive target, but what about the rest of the plan?"

"The only trouble we're having is he's still refusing to have _all_ of the limiters taken off. We're trying to compromise at the moment. Other than that, I'm thinking about putting Cassi in charge of mission control." Rikarde stated. "Don't know who I'm going to take out of the battle to keep her protected. I have an idea about assigning her a new partner but that'll have to be after the battle."

"Why not assign one of the DigiDestined that came with Mimi? That Wallace person seemed like he might be a good choice, he has two Digimon..." Liam said, scratching his head.

"That sounds like a good plan, even if he did seem like an Carrot-Top 2.0 when it came to us DATS." Rikarde shook his head. "I'll think about it. Other than that, we need to actually find aerial team members. There aren't as many flying dudes with those DigiDestined than there are ground troops or Aquans. We need as many as we can get, because we have no idea how large Dagomon's air force is."

"I'll see about finding Christopher then, he did say he had five Digimon on him. Maybe he'll have a couple fliers as well." Liam mused. "Well, I guess I could also call in another favor, but really I don't want to."

"Do what you need to do. I think after we get Azrael to agree to the plan I'm going to go and take the rest of the day off to sleep. I haven't had to pull all-nighters like this since I first got recruited." He sighed. "Rikarde out." With that, his image blinked off.

"Ah boy, I just had to agree to doing the hard stuff." Liam sighed. "Why did I say yes when they asked me to join DATS anyway?" He quickly closed his laptop and exited the room. "Oh right, paycheck. Dang living for costing money. Wait, that makes it sound like I hate capitalism or something. Dang DATS for having so much money? Wait, but they're the ones paying me so isn't it good they have a lot? I'm confused." He almost ran right into his target when he opened the door, not having expected to see him just rushing down the hallway in a rush. Curious.

"Oh, hi." Liam said, somewhat pleasantly surprised. "That was much easier than I expected."

"Yeah, come on. We need to move." He was looking back down the hallway he came from, the expression on his face almost... Frantic? That was an odd expression to have on the normally smug boy's face. "Quickly."

"Okay." Liam said, following behind Christopher. "So you might've heard Lucemon had a freakout, but everything seems to be fine now. We were actually wondering if we could ask for a little more help from you in terms of the aerial teams, if you wouldn't-"

"Yeah, ask me again when I'm not busy dodging frickin' TV headed ninjas." The blond suddenly dragged Liam into a side room and shut the door. After a few tense seconds of him listening at it, he sighed and relaxed slightly. "Damn it, those idiots just had to find me here." He sighed, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "I thought I finally left them behind in Phoenix, but apparently they managed to sniff me out here. This is really bad."

"What are you going on about?" Liam asked, a little annoyed about being man-handled and interrupted so easily. "Well no, I'm not really that interested in that, more what your opinion is on-"

"Unlike your acting commander, I think I'd be okay splitting my forces." Christopher said, shoving off of the door. Liam frowned a little bit but kept his mouth shut. "I can have my last two help out in that regard, yes, and leave Zeke Greymon and Deckerdramon still for the fight with Dagomon. Why? Something happen?"

"Well like I was going to say, our aerial forces are a little lacking compared to our other troops. We're too close to the operation to let it fail." Liam said, shaking his head.

"Oh." Christopher had a frown now. "Well, that kind of makes sense then." Then he winced. "Sheesh, that means she's going to know how things are, and then she's going to most likely try to get on over here." He cursed under his breath.

"Look, the operation is in two days. We've already been at this for two weeks now. There really isn't enough time for new people to come in anymore." Liam said.

"She's one of the Generals! She'll find a way, even if she has to bum a ride with the King when you guys plan on hijacking the portal." Christopher was scowling. "The hardest thing she'll have to deal with is getting into the Digital World, but she could just bully any DigiDestined in Japan or Hong Kong to get herself into it! And she'll probably drag Taiki and Akari and Jenjirou along just to spite me!"

"Well you'll just have to hope she doesn't then, I guess." Liam said, still trying to drive the conversation back to its proper route.

"I wanted them all to live normal lives after our adventure, not get themselves sucked right back into this shit!"

"Well I mean, that's up to the individual isn't it?"

"Yes but you don't know Nene like I do. She meddles and fusses and spies and tries to make you think what she thinks is good for you is what you thought would be good instead! And most of the time you won't find out about it until it's far too late." Christopher had a grimace. "All those poor fans of hers..."

"Wait... Nene?" Dawning comprehension was in Liam's eyes. "You don't mean... Amano Nene do you?"

"Who do you think I was talking about!? I mentioned she was one of the Generals who traveled with me earlier!" Christopher was giving Liam a rather disbelieving look. "She's a core member in the Xros Heart United Army."

Christopher's tirade was stopped by Liam handing him his phone. "Look, the guy you can talk to on this phone is crazy, but he'll make sure that doesn't happen got it? We don't need it. Talk to him. And assist the aerial force. Got it?"

"You already got my agreement on the last part, but I doubt one person is going to stop Nene from coming or helping in some way." He grunted, but accepted the phone anyway. "That girl is a force of nature, you understand?"

"You don't understand. Forces of nature are only stopped by other forces of nature. Or aliens. But he's the first one. Trust me."

"This will only end in a nestle clusterfudge, I'll have you know. You're the one who will likely deal with the fallout, because I am not taking responsibility."

"As long as we hold her off until the attack is over, I'll deal with whatever." Liam's eye was twitching.

* * *

><p>"I can't believe I'm allowing this." Azrael scowled, looking out at the ocean from the roof of the DATS building. His arms were crossed and his wings twitching in aggitation. "That guy's punch must have scrambled my brains."<p>

"Well, that may be." Cassi sighed, coming over to give her little boy a hug with no ulterior motive behind it at all. It reminded him exactly of what first being partnered to her, and he almost immediately reacted by leaning into her. "Besides," She pouted slightly, "You don't want to risk me ending up dead in this war we stumbled into, right? I have faith in you, as long as you have faith in me to stop you from going back to your old self with those limiters off."

"... I guess." Azrael stated, looking away. He was still displeased by all of this. "I just don't want to end up betraying you."

"As long as you keep those feelings inside you when the limiters are powered off, then you won't." She reached down to plant a kiss in his hair, before slowly letting him go. He sighed despite himself, and turned to the only other occupant of the roof.

"Well, give them to me. Can't do my job if I don't have anything to help me." Azrael said.

Rikarde wordlessly came over, and handed him both a headset communicator and a binoculars. "These are experimental." The man stated. "This will be their field test, among other things in this mission. You can still back out of it if you want, but we need every advantage we can square away."

"Yeah, I know." Azrael placed the communicator on his head and put the loop of the binoculars around his neck. He sighed as Rikarde and Cassi backed away, and spread his arms open to them. "Hit me." He said.

Cassi took the controller for his limiters from her pocket, pressed some of the controls on them and they watched as the lights in the rubies encrusted into the circlet, bracelets and anklets on him dim slightly, a few of them turning off entirely.

The effect was immediate, as Azrael roared with the power that lit up both him and everything around him, both of the humans had to close their eyes and look away, as he glowed like a miniature sun. The winds came as his power displaced the very air around him, Rikarde and Cassi both stumbled back as several windows in the surrounding structures exploded, raining glittering shrapnel down on the streets below.

Alarms began to sound in the base as the very ground shook, the part of the roof under Azrael denting and bending, before shattering entirely as he rocketed into the sky, becoming a distant star seconds after leaving.

Cassi looked up into the sky, worrying her lower lip with her teeth while Rikarde came up beside her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "He'll be fine, as long as you help him." He stated, patting her violet DIC. She sighed, taking it out of its holder and letting her hands glow with DigiSoul – the first time she'd done so since they had met.

"Yeah. I know." She said, letting her Soul feed the Digivice, and hopefully keep her partner's mental state stable without the limiters fully active to keep his power down. It was all she could do.

With that, the humans wordlessly made for the roof's elevator, all the while knowing whatever spies in the city that had seen the light rocket into the sky from the building would report it to their master. Hopefully, it would work the way they planned; a reckless enemy was an enemy they could take advantage of.

* * *

><p>The next day, the sun had barely risen again when alarms began to sound once more. Rikarde started awake, having slept on the couch in Magnus' quarters. He was fully awake within seconds, as he knew those alarms only meant one thing; it was time.<p>

He stood up, shrugged his coat on, placed his hat on his head and grabbed his cane. He picked up his DIC from where he last left it on the desk and placed it on his belt. With a grim look on his face, scratching his growing beard, the man left the room.

D-Day had come. This would be the beginning of the end, if they didn't hold the line.

* * *

><p><strong>Afternote: Welp. This is it. The beginning of the end of this arc is here. After this is going to be a lot of action, for those bored with all the talking. As I said last time, this and chapter 9 were a huge chapter before, but my beta reader took one look at the length of it and was like 'AH HELLO NAW! Dx'<strong>

Speaking of, things stabilized with him, so I no longer have any risk of losing him. Which is a plus for me.

Anyway, I don't have much to say here without spoiling things again so, I'm just gonna take my leave and hope you guys like this chapter. :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 11: Always Go Awry Part 1<span>**

* * *

><p>Rikarde looked over the gathered force before him. Lined before him were hundreds of teenagers and young adults from all walks of life, all ethnicities, most not even from his own organization. They had with them monsters of every shape, size and even elemental type, as well as mixes of Vaccine, Virus and Data types. It astounded him how many there were, and how many were comprised of DigiDestined who had no real reason to assist DATS.<p>

For the first time it dawned on him that he was responsible for _all_ of their lives.

It was a sobering thought, and reminded him of why he did not want to be in command of Commander White's pet project. He was fine with doing his job, but being in charge, with all these people looking up to you, depending on you? It was not something he wanted to deal with, he knew he would not have the patience to deal with it; hell, look at what happened between him and Izzy.

Speaking of looking up to him, many of those gathered were looking at him expectantly. Mimi, Joe, Izzy and Christopher were all watching him from where they stood, hiding in wait until they were needed. Davis and Cody were right next to him, and for once Davis had a drawn, serious expression on his face that matched Cody's perfectly. Their Digimon were all by their partner's sides, and they understood as well as, if not better than, their partners in what was about to go down.

They all stood by the waterfront, where Dagomon's forces were moving in. It wouldn't be long, he already saw Digimon beginning to breech water's surface a mile off.

He gave a sigh and let binoculars fall against his chest, turning his attention back to the force gathered in front of him. He grimaced, knowing what he needed to do next, but absolutely hated having do it. Speeches were not his forte.

Regardless, he clicked open a communicator as he began to speak, "I want ya'll to know, I'm not exactly the best with words." Everyone around him now began to look at him, and he knew the sky and sea teams would hear this as well due to him speaking into the communicator. "I've had a week of having to think this up, too. Before the last couple of days however, I planned on only talking to DATS personnel. I did not expect what basically amounted to hired mercenaries to come and be our cavalry."

Izzy began to mutter something ugly under his breath, but Mimi and Joe both slapped the back of his head to make him shut up. Christopher smirked. Most of the other gathered DigiDestined didn't look like they knew how to take it either, but he pressed on;

"But no matter our factions, you all responded like how I always hoped all other sentient beings would; not just humanity, because there are more than just humans here." He elaborated. "There are also Digimon, many of whom have no real working relationship with each other, or any other bond with each other beyond that. Ya'll came here, when my own organization has its head up its ass dealing with, and I'll be the first to admit it, rather unimportant shit compared to the situation we're all now facing. You are, all of you, the kind of men and women and any other gender that might be here that I have not covered, that I can respect. If I am to fall here today, I would be glad to do it for any one of you."

He let that sink in a moment, and under the water Nemo was smirking to himself. He figured staying with this crazy man when this all blew over wouldn't be too terrible of an idea. Rikarde continued;

"But I will not die here this day, and neither will you! Because I will be watching your backs just like you are watching out for ours! We will do our ancestors proud and we will not go out quietly into the night! We will beat back these invaders on our shores and show them what it's like to not just mess with DATS or DigiDestined, but with fine American men and women and Digimon!" He was roaring this out now, actually getting into this. Heh, he still felt stupid. "We are the Land of the Free, and we will not allow some shadow octopus asshat to come here and mess up our country!"

There was a cheer from the gathered group, and Rikarde couldn't help the feral grin that came to his lips to hear it. His partners' Viral natures rubbed off on him, what could he say? "And now I think it's about time we went on the offensive," He said. "And pay back all those brine suckers for the unbidden attacks they've been making on this world! On my mark, everyone ready for battle!" He lifted his binoculars and looked out; saw that the huge wall of sea fairing Digimon (with quite a few fliers mixed in as well) was much closer than it had been before. And he barked out his the first of his orders of that battle, "Mark!"

And then the world began to flash repeatedly as Digimon began to Digivolve left and right.

"Sea force, deploy! Aerial force remain on standby until further notice! Ground forces are to make formations at the sea-line and wait for Dagomon's forces to arrive. Remember that the ground forces are to be as flashy and feisty as possible!" Cassi said over the communicator, giving out some of the finer details as the various teams split. She was in the command center, having found a violet commander's coat and leaving it open to expose the outfit she wore from the day before. Willis was beside her, and several of the bridge crew's Digimon were Digivolved alongside his just in the case someone tried to be sneaky and take them out.

"You all heard the lady, let's be flashy, ground force!" Rikarde laughed loudly. Both his partners were already Champion and by his side, along with the rest of his force. He noticed a few Ultimates on his side as well. That was interesting; he hadn't known whether the DigiDestined's outside of the ones he'd talked to could even get to that level! You learned things every day.

* * *

><p>Nemo led the charge, even if his Seadramon squad had a few Mega Seadramon and Waru Seadramon, and one Metal Seadramon in it. He was the smartest, and traced his lineage back to Old Giga directly, so they differed to him. Ai was behind him and following her was the other aquatic Digimon that had been brought along by their partners. He'd been scared that things wouldn't go well on the sea front, but the reinforcements provided was giving him a huge boost in confidence.<p>

Meanwhile, Dolce placated the anxious Digimon that had to remain on standby with her team, Fyuria buzzing about in random patterns and managing nothing productive. Azrael was their eyes in the sky, and he was relaying everything he could see down to them so they could be ready.

The first to meet the sea force were the ones that Nemo had not been able to convince, the Seadramon either seduced by whispers of power or were coerced through fear to do as Dagomon said. It made him sad to fight kin, but they brought it upon themselves by allying with the one who murdered one of their Grand Patriarchs in cold blood.

The older Seadramons of his group, the few Ultimates and the only Mega, all of whom had been the royal guards of said patriarchs at one point, went in front - their attacks tearing through the water and cutting through the first wave. As screams, flashes of light and drifting DigiEggs began to flow through the water, Nemo tried his best to drown it out, grimacing to himself. He knew it would come down this, but fighting his kin was hard to bear. Dagomon would pay for this, he swore.

Ai herself seemed to dance in the water, aiding the Seadramon as they engaged each other. How she was able to tell who was friend and foe was a mystery, but the opposing Seadramon slowly began to dwindle.

The few Ultimate level Seadramon that Dagomon had managed to subjugate found themselves being swamped when the other aquan Digimon caught up. One by one the Mega Seadramon and Waru Seadramon on the opposing side were being turning back to eggs, all it took was concentrated fire from Nemo's Ultimates or for them to be distracted by the many Champions swimming about so they could be taken out with a single blast by the Metal Seadramon on their side.

Then the Tylomon came.

They were smaller, thinner cousins of the Seadramon family, colored primarily sky blue, wore a huge navy colored helmet and had blades for fins. They came swooping in and began to batter the other champion Digimon about, driving them away and letting some Divermon and Scorpiomon assault the heavy hitters. On top of that there soon followed a wave of Gesomon and Coleamon that attacked the instant the Tylomon let up. And who better to lead a reinforcement squad primarily made of squids than a huge squid themed Devimon?

It let a loud growl as dark, acidic ink poured from its lips, the dark Devimon suit on its body bulging awkwardly as it propelled itself through the water with tattered wings that no longer looked like they were air worthy. Its arms looked like huge tentacles with claws coming out what would have normally been hands on a humanoid Digimon, and out of its shoulders came two other long tentacle arms that ended in an array of spikes. Smaller tentacles followed those, but they were normal tentacles without anything like spikes or teeth or claws on them.

"Guilty Black!" It roared, spraying a huge cloud of black ink that was definitely bad, considering how many of his own forces melted as they were caught in the ink. Luckily the Digimon who were engaging that group broke off in time to avoid it.

"Rana, take Mega and take that bloke out!" Nemo roared at her. "We can't have that big bastard choking up the water with that acidic sludge!" The Seadramon he was referring too, a Mega Seadramon, began to make his way over in Rana's direction. She stopped him with an over complicated wave of her hand.

"Mega can focus on keeping you all alive for me, Nemo. This Marine devil just can't handle Ai." The self-named Digimon girl said, a smile playing across her face. The next moment she had slammed into the Marine Devimon, dragging his tentacles along with him. "Let's have a dance, sir."

* * *

><p>As blots of inky blackness spread out in the sea, some of Dagomon's forces managed to break through and step onto land; and when he said 'some', he meant a sizable chunk. Ebidramon and Coleamon began to leap from the waters, some Scorpiomon joining them.<p>

They never knew what hit 'em.

Rikarde had his forces jump on them the moment they emerged, a literal wall of land dwelling and low flying Digimon leaping onto the forces that were still coming out of the bay. Energy blasts, fireballs, lightning bolts and icy winds began to pelt them, leading some of the really unprepared and weak enemies to instantly turn back into eggs.

They didn't let up. All of the heavy hitters lined up shots and blowing up chuck of the semi-aquatic force, who had no choice but to try and reach land themselves if they wanted a foothold. They did try to attack from the water, but then the ice and lightning attacks from the ground forces made them sitting ducks. It was a slaughter and Rikarde found it glorious. All of the cathartic payback was theirs.

Rikarde gave another signal, and his two partners stopped holding back, Leonard making a flying run of Poison Powder over the forces under siege, adding injury to injury.

Warren, meanwhile, was part of the melee force that had closed in on those that had made it out of the blast zone, as he liked to call it, and was shanking any Digimon stupid enough to get close to him. He nearly got tackled by a blackened Scorpiomon that keeled over as soon as it missed him. Other Ultimates began to come out of the killzone, some less devestated than others. Rikarde recalled the Champions and had refocus their attacks on the sea-line, while sending the Ultimates to engage.

Rikarde frowned as he took to his binoculars again, looking toward the sky. The fliers on Dagomon's side had received their signal to move in, assumedly since the sea and ground forces were taking a pounding.

The aerial forces, lead by Dolce, launched their counter attack. Dagomon's aerial units were quickly brought to a halt. Rikarde noticed that Fyuria and a large number of the smaller flying Digimon were missing, but was no surprise.

"So. We're meeting their forces with ours, and it looks good so far." Rikarde was frowning as he talked to his teammates, one via communicator. "Dagomon obviously doesn't train these guys, they're not as tough as I thought they'd be. Or our guys are just stronger. But something just isn't sitting right with me."

"That's because Dagomon is sitting back and doing nothing." Liam said. "How can you ever feel safe when the battle hasn't even started?

"He hasn't even surfaced yet." Rikarde agreed. "He's just sitting down there, probably, holding that portal. My pain's not getting any worse so it must be close to finished now, so why hasn't he surfaced to throw it yet?"

"Gotta get rid of the flies first. Just in case. Or something is holding him back. Some kind of fear... maybe the fact that Lucemon isn't in the fight is working to our advantage. He's such a powerhouse the enemy has to worry about him."

Cassi cursed. "That's the exact opposite of what we hoped the plan would do though! Azrael left in a very flashy way, there's no way Dagomon or any of his other eyes and ears didn't see a pillar of light going into the heavens!"

Rikarde's expression was drawn. "So that means this might just be..."

"A diversion. Dagomon's not using the portal in the way we thought." Liam said. "Which means he may be trying to bring forth something even more powerful from the Digital World."

"Well yeah, he has that stupid siege engine thing." Rikarde growled. "Just how powerful is this thing going to be? I'd like to know so I can kiss my ass goodbye already!"

"Well, let's just say I maybe shouldn't have stopped Amano Nene from making it over..."

"Who?" Both of his compatriots asked.

"Nevermind." Liam sighed.

"If you say so." Rikarde brought the binoculars back up to look at something closing in and balked slightly. "Move!" He tackled the other man out of the way as a giant black statue came down upon them at break neck speeds; exploding with such force it sent the two flying further.

"Guys? What's going on?" Cassi asked, but received no answer.

A mad cackle came from the sky as a red skinned man in a black leather suit flew down on a pair of wings that seemed like part of his outfit. Following behind him a group of Gargoylemon behind him, every one of them stone faced. He looked a lot like Darth Maul would if he had a goatee, tuft of black hair on his head, devil horns, a tail with a spade-like decoration on the end of it and a huge black leather fetish. So, really nothing like Darth Maul. Yeah.

"Well well, looks like the head of the snake is right here," He hissed gleefully. "My lord was right in sending me here. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to kill you boys now, m'kay? You're mucking things up a bit too much with your clever plottiness."

"Ah, a lackey that thinks he's important. Wonderful." Liam sighed once more.

"Yeah, let's just take this one out." Rikarde said, slamming a full fist of DigiSoul down onto his Digivice as he stood. The weird red devil scowled before summoning a black statue, which was backed up by his escorts summoning their own smaller ones. They levitated in the air for a moment before shooting at the two boys. As the statues came down upon them, they were slashed through and kicked away by the blured form of Leonard's Ultimate.

While the Gargoylemon flinched at seeing their statues destroyed before they could explode, the devilman grinned widely at the insectoid dragon. The Dinobeemon cracked his neck and all four sets of his knuckles, before getting into a battle ready pose, spreading his feet far apart.

"Let's play." Leonard growled, before darting forth to tackle the devilman. He rammed into the Gargoylemon escort that had been behind him, sending them all flying with screams.

"Now now now, if this is going to be how it is little boy," The leather loving Digimon said from his new location, perched on a light fixture. The grin that was on the devil's face was rather shark-like. "I definitely want to enjoy it! I get so little action as it is."

* * *

><p>A wave of Airdramon closed in on Dolce's party from their flank as they tried to deal with a particularly nasty group of chaingun touting Mothmon, but from under the approaching group a nasally voice cried out "Death Divider!"<p>

The oriental wyverns were cut to ribbons as a tornado of slicing limbs ripped right through them. The survivors scattered and some Digimon swooped in to save the eggs that were about to make a freefall.

The tornado came to a stop right next to Dolce, and the whirling inhabitant inside of it saluted at her. He was a big creature, a blue scaled dragon with antlers on his head, red eyes and a horn on its nose. It had cybernetic parts all over its body, namely its claws, its feet, its wings, a helmet and an out of place chest gem that glowed brilliantly.

"Cyber Coredramon, sent by General Christopher, ma'am." He stated.

"Thanks for coming." Dolce said. "I need you to lead an attack squadron on hit and run strikes. Hit them hard and fast to let our tankier members continue to fight them. Call yourselves a rogue squadron or whatever helps."

"Got you, ma'am." He nodded. "I'll pick the ones I'll need really quick then. Got any targets you'd like me to take out?"

"Anything with a breath weapon. Which is most everything. I recommend anything that uses ice or fire, since those cause the most trouble." Dolce said.

"Ah, like those Airdramon that were about to toast you." He gave a small smirk. "Alright, I'll get right on it, lady." He looked back where more fliers were incoming from the enemy line and pursed his lips for a moment. "We got incoming."

A squadron of Devimon led by a Skull Satamon were indeed closing in. The skeletal demon creature was brown in color, with a huge black orb the same color as its skull sitting in its ribcage. Iron bands were wrapped around its bony biceps and armored gloves adorned its hands which held a huge staff with a yellow orb and a hooked spike on its ends. It wore armored pants on its legs, which ended in metal boots that looked a little rusted. Its tattered black wings kept it aloft in the air, and it seemed remarkably fast as it was the first one among its battle group to reach them.

"What do we have here!" He could have been grinning, but due to the fact his face was a freaking skull it was hard to tell. "A little lady leading a ragtag bunch that can hardly deal with some moths! What say you just give up now so we can put this farce to an end, eh? My lord is waiting eagerly to take his revenge."

"Ah cha... And here I was hoping to stay out of the limelight..." Dolce said, with a sigh. "Guess I'll have to kill you quickly then." Her monotone made it hard to differentiate emotions, but it didn't sound like she was joking.

"Hah! A mere Champion and yet you think you can best me? I honestly doubt it, little lady!" He laughed loudly, twirling his staff a bit before pointing the orbed end at her. "Why not just do a trick and make yourself disappear, witchy?"

His subordinates all groaned at the horrible pun, and Cyber Coredramon allowed a single drop of sweat to roll down his cheek.

"Oh god, one of those people." He grumbled.

Skull Satamon suddenly twisted himself to the side, as a slice of wind barely missed clipping one of his wings. "Puns disgust me." Dolce intoned.

"Well then, I'll just have to keep telling 'em in order to make you blow away like a good breeze, eh?" He was cackling now, the idiot, as he dodged another burst of razor wind. "Ah! Please stop! I don't like it when people cut wind!"

'This guy is asking to die, isn't he?' Coredramon asked helplessly toward the other half of the fusion. Cyberdramon just made a disgusted, noncommittal sound in reply.

* * *

><p>Ai grabbed one of Marine Devimon's tendrils, swinging him through the water as she went, using her Aqua Needle to continuously put pressure on the Ultimate Digimon, turning the very water around them into her weapons.<p>

Marine Devimon continued to withstand the assault, their battle continuing in the silence of the water. The Seadramon squadrons were all but a distant dream right now, as Ranamon's initial assault on Marine Devimon brought the two far into open water, where they could fight in piece.

'Good, the DigiSoul flow has stabilized. Liam had me worried there for the first week, but he adjusts quickly. He probably doesn't even realize how much DigiSoul he really has.' Ai thought to herself, as she guarded against the double tentacles that attacked her from the sides. Marine Devimon's attacks were fierce, but he seemed to have trouble moving since Ai's Aqua Needle first hit him.

"Guilty Black." Ai heard for the second time that day, as the dark poisonous ink issued forth. Immediately, and now that she didn't have to worry about others, she countered him with her Jealousy Rain, which met the acidic ink, and dissolved it. Marine Devimon quickly pulled himself back, but his left tentacle which had been issuing the ink got caught, and began to dissolve.

Without a word, Marine Devimon brought his claw like arms up, and slashed his extremity off. His other dashed into the oncoming Ranamon, managing to catch the poor girl by the throat.

"Neck Hanging." He murmured, raising the struggling Ranamon high as his tentacle strangled her.

"Aqua... Needle..." Ai gasped, directing towards her throat. Marine Devimon's remaining tentacle was slashed off by the water she had directed, floating down into the depths. "Geez, going for a lady's throat isn't very sporting."

"Guilty Black." Maine Devimon didn't even pause, his attacks coming one after another. Ai countered the cloud of ink with her Jealousy Rain once more, the two attacks dissolving away into the sea. Before Marine Devimon, Ai dashed forward and grabbed Marine Devimon by the neck, forcing his jaw shut. She then brought herself behind him, using her other arm to create a headlock. As Ai had thought he wasn't necessarily an easy battle to fight, but her own techniques were stronger than his, and in spite of everything he stood little chance of victory.

"Sorry, I know you told me not to kill when I could help it, Liam." Ai said, as Marine Devimon struggled to get out of the headlock she had put him in. "But in a war, I can't be as forgiving as you." As she said this, she let out one last Jealousy Rain, dissolving the enemy leader from head down. He dissolved into golden particles, which quickly flew away from her, to her surprise. Without time to think, she quickly followed.

* * *

><p>The Gargoylemon had been crushed from Leonard's attack missing his intended target, and it seemed that the red leather loving Digimon, Phelesmon, didn't care his minions were destroyed. He seemed to be having too much fun outrunning the speedy, far larger Ultimate. Leonard was getting frustrated as his blows never hit, only being dodged or blocked by a trident the demon had casually summoned (with a fiery pentagram and everything. Everything about this jackass spoke 'try-hard', he swore). He didn't even know how that was possible; his four arms were traveling at the speed of sound and yet this insufferable prick's trident was magically in the right place to block, and if it wasn't that meant he was dodging out of the way.<p>

Thinking about, Leonard realized 'frustrated' was an understatement. Especially because the guy wouldn't shut up.

"Oh oh, I'm sorry. You were so close that time."

"This is honestly becoming sad, little boy."

"I'll stand here for a fraction longer, to be fair."

"Come now! Stop trying to hit me and hit me already!"

"Oh, if only you were a millisecond faster."

And so on.

It was making him so irritated he pushed himself harder to try and grab a hit on the grinning red devil. Every miss or block merely infuriated him further, until he suddenly realized there was a sharp pain in his chest and he collapsed. He was vaguely aware of a building behind him crumbling and blacked out.

Phelesmon continued to grin as he twirled his trident, watching the building fall. He had struck the other Ultimate so hard the force of the blow had exited his back and destroyed the stupid pillar of concrete and glass. It was so easy to send his opponents into a fury when they realized he only toyed with them, and then went in for the kill.

Speaking of, he still had the commanders to kill. He turned to where those two were and was about to walk over to take care of that, but he paused when his eyes were assaulted by a glaring incandescence. He squinted at the bright light shining in his eyes and saw through it an iridescent armored warrior with long white hair coming out from under his bug eyed helm. The warrior frowned hard at him, before pointing at him with a red gem tipped spear.

"You hurt my little brother." Warren's voice came from the warrior's lips. "Now I hurt you."

Phelesmon dodged a light speed stab that almost gored him, but didn't see the follow up strike until it was too late, gaining a glowing gold wound on his stomach that had him stumbling away in pain.

It was clear he was having trouble with the new arrival – with the light shining in his eyes, it didn't matter if he was faster. If he couldn't see his ability to block and dodge were impaired, proven by the wounds leaking golden data that he was currently gaining.

The red devil was taking far more blows than he had against Leonard, and Warren moved with far less waste in his movements than his little brother did. His spear was everywhere, and if Phelesmon focused on it the blades gauntlets followed. The wounds burned like bad sunburns and the pain darkened the demon's mood. He grit his teeth, a growl rumbling in his throat before he shrieked in an unnaturally loud voice.

Warren stumbled back, the sonic scream messing with his senses. The glow he emitted out flickered long enough for Phelesmon to hit him with a black statue that sent him flying back. Phelesmon then took that moment to flee, all thoughts of fun having left his mind and generally admitting to himself that his will to fight had went down the ' ' levels.

Not that he knew what a was, but for the sake of making the narration easier that's the approximation of his thoughts.

It's too bad he was still having trouble seeing, because he ran right into Leonard's fists. All four of them. About a thousand times in four seconds. Most of his teeth were broken, along with the horns on his forehead. Leonard finished his barrage with a haymaker that slammed Phelesmon into the ground.

Warren leapt onto the fallen devil with a shout and a brilliantly glowing spearhead, driving his weapon deep into their opponent's chest. Phelesmon let out a ragged wheeze before bursting into golden fragments, which flew off into the sky.

"Thanks bro," Leonard wheezed, still holding his chest. "Bastard was a little much on my own."

"Next time, wait for me when our partner Digivolves us." Warren glared at his younger brother. "I almost didn't get here in time."

"Yeah well, I couldn't let him have his way with our partner. He was too close."

* * *

><p><strong>Afternote: Okay, first thing's first. I'm sorry this came out a day late, I got too caught up in writing some later chapters to get one edited by the beta reader before he became busy over the weekend, and we only just recently finished it. This chapter is literally hot off the presses. The second thing is, this is the second chapter that my editor basically had me cut in half, as the original was 9k words long and I'm aiming to try and keep things 5-7k words long. I don't like the fact I keep having to cut my chapters in half, because it honestly makes me feel like this arc is going on too long, and I originally planned to have this thing last at least until chapter 12. Yes, plans change as I actually write things but daaaamn.<strong>

**My editor actually suggested I be coy about where the data of Marine Devimon and Phelesmon, so I will. Why are they behaving like that and not turning back into eggs? You'll find out... Eventually. :P**

**Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this despite its lateness. I've been updating on Monday up until this point, so I hope you can forgive at least one late day.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Digimon Savers: Zero Hour**  
><strong><span>Chapter 12: Always Go Arwy part 2<span>**

* * *

><p>Dolce switched tactics, using her Aquary Pressure to bring up a large stream of water from the ocean down below them, surrounding Skull Satamon with a sphere of waves that twisted and turned at her command. After a moment, she began to use the streams to lash out at her captive, one bit at a time.<p>

"Oh my, this will be hell for my armor." Skull Satamon didn't look all that worried by what was happening, other than looking down at his rusted lower body armor. "It's dry clean only, you know! I doubt putting it in a salt wash is a bright idea on my part."

However, when it looked like it was about to close in on him, he seemed to phase out of existence in his current location and appear in a different spot in the air, well out of the water cage.

"Good thing I don't have to get wet!" He said cheerfully.

He dived out of the way of a Death Divider aimed at him, laughing at the tornado of claws and blades that tried to catch him while he punned.

Dolce threw a new barrage of Baluna Gales at her target, before taking the ball of water with her Aquary Pressure and throwing it at him all at once.

"Oh, talk about a breath of fresh sea air!" Skull Satamon laughed and launched a large blast of lightning from the orb on his staff. "Nail Bone!" He crowed, the blast clashing with Dolce's attack and exploding.

He cackled a little, before donning an actually threatening expression. "Too bad it wasn't fresh enough." Cyber Coredramon took that moment to punch him right in the face. He could have ended the fight right there with his claws, but this guy was so annoying it left the DigiXrossed dragon sort of angry and not thinking straight.

There was a loud ripping sound as he phased from the world again, just as a followup blade of air went through the space his head was at.

"I am going to murder him." Dolce said. As she did so, large cheers erupted from the ground below, and a rather telling wave from Ai on the surface told her that the other generals of Dagomon were no longer a problem. "Seems your friends weren't up to fighting real competition."

"You assume we're meant to beat you!" He cackled again, sounding rather mad, as in crazy. "We have a difference purpose, little lady. But any more talking would be telling, and I won't waste my breath on it!"

"I see. Well you'll be dead soon either way, so I suppose it doesn't matter. You won't even have time to mourn."

"Who says we'll need to mourn?" He grinned madly at her, lifting up his staff into the air and letting lightning crackle around it, drowning out the light of the sun. "We're too useful to our master to leave dead, after all."

"Look out miss," Cyber Coredramon bared his fangs at the Skull Satamon, speaking up for the first time in several minutes, "He's building up a lot of power there!"

"I noticed."

"But you! Shall face! A reckoning! Such that not even your WINDS will save you, witchy girl!" Skull Satamon cackled again, the ball of lightning growing from his staff even more as he punctuated his words, drowning out all light except from it.

And then he let it drop on himself, drowning out his laughter with the sound of a thunderous bang. A monstrous force blew all combatants away, even as he half cackle-screamed as his own lightning tore him apart.

"The hell is he doing!" Cyber Coredramon roared out in surprise, staring in shock as he and Dolce were buffeted away. "Why is he killing himself!?"

"I have no idea." Dolce said, as she used a wind barrier to prevent the force from outright blowing them out of the sky. "Maybe he's just an idiot."

As Skull Satamon's data was blown to the winds, however, something was beginning to happen in the sea. A huge form began rise a mile away from the battle, a many tentacled creature pulled into a mockery of human form. Battle stopped as a bellowing sound came from the creature's mouth, which many soon came to realize was laughter. In one 'hand' - which was really a mass of tentacles arrayed into an arm, belted up to keep it that way - was a huge trident, and in the other - this time just one huge tendril - was a glowing, formless gray void that spun almost like the milky way galaxy. Green lightning crackled around his form as he settled huge red eyes onto the city that this creature was so coming to loathe.

They had been waiting, and here he was. Lord Dagomon, the God Priest of the Dark Ocean. The last of the Divine Generals. The worst nightmare of everyone currently fighting.

"Man, is he ugly as shit." Christopher snarked.

"At least he's coming to greet us." Liam said. "Now we just have to kill the hell out of him."

"That'll be easier said than done." Izzy stated with a grimace.

"Everyone shut up and look!" Gomamon blurted from Joe's shoulder, pointing out at the monstrosity in the sea. "He's doing something and I don't like it!"

Indeed, Dagomon held up his trident, which began to flash with that potent green lightning crackling around his form, as he stabbed the thing into the air. Literally, the prongs were cutting into the skyline. With a jerk, he cut open a glowing portal. Out of it came a monstrosity that, while nowhere near as big as him, was still huge. The DigiDestined stepping back in shock.

Flying out of the open portal cut in the air was a monster that they never expected to see again; a menace known as Chimeramon. It had a collar wrapped around its neck, and shackles around its four mismatched arms, but it was definitely a Chimeramon in all its twisted glory.

"Well, that's something I never expected to see again." Davis said from his hiding space. Out of everyone he didn't look all that surprised, oddly. "... Glad Ken isn't here now, though. Poor guy would start tripping over himself."

"That's inconvenient." Liam said with a smile.

Rikarde slapped him upside the head, giving him a glare. "Shut up. This completely messes with our plans."

"Well, it looks like our job is going to start soon, then" Davis smiled at them. "Everyone else go and take care of their parts of the plan now, okay?"

"We will. You ready Palmon?" Mimi asked her partner gently. The plant gave a firm nod.

Palmon gave a girm nod. "Yeah! I wanna kick that bad guy's butt!"

"Same here sister!" Gomamon flapped his flipper. "The sea is my domain, and someone trying to kidnap my friends from it is gonna get a major boot to the head for it!"

"Oh, Gomamon..." Joe sighed.

"I concur!" Tentomon said. "He's been threatening too many lives for far too long! It's time to finally knock him down!"

"Good luck." Liam said. "We leave Dagomon to you. We'll figure out what to do about Chimeramon."

"Yeah, we're going to need it." Izzy said.

"Let's go! Palmon, Warp Digivolve!" Mimi said, holding out her Digivice. To Liam and Rikarde's astonishment, the white device suddenly turned green as a same colored beam flew from its screen and impacted her partner.

"Palmon, Warp Digivolve too!" The glowing Digimon did an adorable flip, before bursting out in a green beam into the air. She stopped a few yards away, turning into a glowing green giant cactus thing with boxing gloves before turning and bursting into another beam. She stopped again, becoming some sort of wood sprite, before turning one last time and blasting higher into the air.

When she stopped this time, she became a glowing woman with a rose petal helmet on her head. Red clothes formed around her, her skin became pale pink, thorny ivy whips wrapped around her torso and finally she gained long, flowing blond hair and a beauty mark on her lower left cheek. She puckered red lips and blew everyone a kiss, before placing black gloved hands on one of her shapely hips.

"Rosemon." She finished.

"Follow her lead, Gomamon! Warp Digivolve!" Joe ordered, following the same as his lady friend. His Digivice had changed colors too, this time to a slate gray, and a same colored beam came from its screen as well.

"Like that's any different!" Gomamon gave a bit of snark before he did just that. "Gomamon, Warp Digivolve too!" As he flew through the air, he began a larger woolly creature with tusks and a large horn on his head, then a huge humanoid with a hammer and a turtle shell on his back, and then finally a huge hairy humanoid thing. His fur became white, a cap formed on his head, two shield-like protrusions on his shoulders and finally two huge maces on his back. Belts covered his arms and torso, and a loin-cloth was tied to his waste. The two maces shot out of the holders on his back, connected to chains, and he grabbed said chains in his hands and began to spin them like twin flails.

"Vikemon!" He roared.

"Let's get this ended quickly, Tentomon!" Izzy held out his Digivice, which had become purple and followed the other two's example, shooting a violet beam into his hovering partner.

"Gladly! His tush is cooked!" The insect agreed. "Tentomon, Warp Digivolve too!" He blasted off into the air, at first becoming a huge insect with four arms and wings and a horn, with no visible eyes, moving on to become a huger insect with a giant carapace on its back as well as a bigger horn but keeping the same general body design, and moved on to become an even bigger insect. Its body shone and became golden, a set of wings and carapace forming on its back, and a huge set of horns forming on its head. His entire body gleamed in the sun and he readied his claws on all four of his arms.

"Herakle Kabuterimon!" He thundered, lightning blazing around him.

"Well, we're going to be a bit unimpressive compared to that, but," Christopher drawled while bringing out his own Digivice. "Let's do this. Greymon, Mail Birdramon, Deckerdramon! Reload!"

Three glowing forms burst from the Xros Loader's screen and formed into different creatures, two of which were familiar to some of the group already while the last one wasn't. He was about the same size as Vikemon and Herakle Kabuterimon, and much longer. His body was shaped much like a crocodile's would be if it were crossed with a hulking tank, which missile launchers on its back.

"Let's not stop there. Greymon, Mail Birdramon!" Christopher barked, the screen of his Digivice glowing. "DigiXros!"

The two were surrounded by that same odd energy again, and both roared in agreement, "DigiXros!" before charging at each other and merging, once more forming- "METAL GREYMON!"

"Huh. That's not the Metal Greymon we know." Izzy stated, itching to get his laptop and Davis dubbed 'DigiDex' out.

"Dolce, Ai, Fyuria, you three ready to go?" Liam asked, as the three all returned from their various tasks. "I'm going to go all out this time."

"I've been waiting for that." Dolce said with a smile.

"Attack!" Fyuria screamed manically.

"We'll give that Chimeramon a good punch." Ai said with a chuckle.

"Well, this is what we were intending." Rikarde sighed, Warren and Leonard stepping up beside him. Nemo seemed to have opted to stay under the water to continue leading their forces down there. "I just wish it wasn't going to have to take place in the city. I foresee lots of property damage."

"Now ain't the time to be thinking about that sorta stuff, man." The Dinobeemon stated, flexing his arms.

"My brother is right this time." Warren looked loath to admit it. "Now isn't the time to be focused on the matters of finance. We'll have to win this first."

"Yeah, yeah," Rikarde sighed, shaking his head.

"We just have to hold out for that Shoutmon guy to get here with his army or whatever, right? Even idiots can manage that." Liam said with a reassuring smile. "Though I admit, it'd be nice to have Lucemon here."

"Even idiots, huh?" Rikarde gave him a dull look. He sighed. "Here's hoping."

"**GO, MY LITTLE ONE. GO AND MAKE THEM HURT.**" Dagomon commanded the Chimeramon, who had been content to sit there in the air. "**CUT OFF THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE. ALL ELSE IS OF NO CONCERN FOR YOU."**

The composite Digimon gave a terrible howl before it headed in the direction the huge squid monster had pointed out, right at their little group.

"Well, that's happening." Rikarde grunted, before looking at their own assembled snake head killers. "You guys waiting for a signal?"

"Not really, just thought we'd enjoy the scenery." Vikemon snarked at him, before getting a light whip to his cap. "Hey!" He pouted at the floating woman, bringing a head up to his cap to stop it from falling off his head.

"Hey yourself," Rosemon huffed, before leading the charge by way of flying off. Herakle Kabuterimon and Zeke Greymon, whom had been Super Digivolved in the interim, flew after her, Deckerdramon ambling behind them.

"Spoil sports." He grumbled, before lumbering off after them.

"Let's do this." Liam said, as the DigiDestined vanished from sight. Chimeramon descended onto the beach in front of them, letting out a roar. Several of the other tamers began to fight the forces that continued to spill onto the beach, as the two leaders of this band faced down a rather angry looking monster.

"Ugly mother hubbard, ain't he?" Rikarde asked now that he got a good look at the creature. A Kabuterimon's mask, only with eye holes, wings from Angemon and Airdramon, arms from Devimon, Skull Greymon and Kuwagamon. A torso from Greymon, with legs from a Garurumon and a tail from a Monochromon. And lastly, the luxurious hair of a normal variant of Metal Greymon.

The creature gave another loud roar, obviously offended.

"Well now, time to give our guest the proper welcome." Liam said, flourishing a bow.

"Indeed. Boys, if you'd open the way for our little ladies?" Rikarde asked his twin Digimon.

"With pleasure." Leonard said, his wings buzzing loudly.

"Gladly." Warren nodded, light once more coming off of his form. His bright iridescence seemed to be a perfect match for his brother's irritating, nauseating wing vibrations.

"Let's go." Ai said, as Dolce and Fyuria took up positions behind her, before rushing forth as well.

Chimeramon screamed its fury as Warren blinded it with a Lucent Glow and Leonard messed up its equilibrium with an Irritant Buzz. Its maw lit up with emerald fire and a great beam of heat erupted, aiming to try and cut through them all as it threw its head about.

"Damnit!" Rikarde cried out, the beam slicing through the buildings behind them like a hot knife through butter, turning them to melting glass and slag due to the residual heat of the attack. "The hell does it have a wave motion beam breath weapon for!?"

"Because screw logic and reasonable standard." Liam gritted his teeth.

The beast roared and charged toward the sounds of their voices, stumbling as Leonard did everything in his power to mess up its ability to stand. The Digimon reasonably did not want to get anywhere close to the thing, big and powerful looking as it was, so it made it over to them relatively unimpeded for the most part. If it weren't for the fact it tripped over its own two feet and sent itself sailing over the two acting commanders' heads to smash into the buildings behind them, it probably would have ended right then.

Davis had a death grip on Cody's shoulder to keep him from leaving their hiding place, V-mon and Armadillomon at their feet looking raring to go. He looked like he was barely able to keep himself back as well, but they stayed back for the moment.

"Okay, don't talk so loud with big and ugly right in front of us." Rikarde growled as he and Liam picked themselves up from where they had thrown themselves to keep from being caught up in the giant Digimon's mad charge. "Gotcha."

"Dolce, you and Fyuria help Warren and Leonard surround the thing on all sides! Ai, sorry to ask this, but you're going to have to head on the bastard. Keep him fixed on you if you can."

"Fine by me!" Ai shouted, running forward and delivering a straight jab into the monster's face. It didn't budge an inch. "Well... crap."

Its eyes centered on her, even as it began to stand once more. It snarled before reaching down to punch her with its Skull Greymon arm, which would have flattened her into a blue shaded pancake if Warren didn't fly in front of its face and turn up his Lucent Glow.

Chimeramon screamed as the light penetrated its retinas once more, skewing its aim so that the giant fist landed a yard from her - however, the force of the blow still sent up an explosion of dust, and sent Ai tumbling head over heel away from the impact zone.

"That was close, miss." Leonard said as he appeared next to her landing zone, helping her stand once more. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just hurt my pride a bit." Ai gritted her teeth.

High above, Dolce sent rather useless blasts of Aquary Pressure into the side of the monster, which seemed to ignore her. Fyuria was even less useful, merely poking at one of the arms, which swatted at her lazily like a bug. Which she technically was, but still.

"Well, do try not to get yourself hurt, we need you to bring the pain in whatever way you can." Leonard said. "I need to get back at making him want to throw up now."

With that, he flew back up into the air, his wings once more buzzing an incessant drone that sent Chimeramon's equilibrium to the gutter. The monster roared and tried to swat at him, but it was far too disoriented to even come close to hitting him.

Ai dashed forward once more, unleashing a small barrage of attacks on the monster's front, she finished off by spewing a nice poisonous goop out of her mouth into the monster's enormous girth, though it didn't seem to affect it.

One of its Devimon arms carved a ditch as it tried to swing at her, but it missed by a mile. She was only one insect among many, however, and Chimeramon turned its head in Dolce's direction to fire off a "HEAT VIPER!", the emerald heat ray searing the air. It seemed to have gotten sick of her giving him a bath.

Dolce's Aquary Pressure came to defend her, but it was sliced through like butter as the witch dove from the sky, barely avoiding a fire bath as she nearly crashed into the water instead.

"This is becoming problematic." Rikarde stated darkly, not noticing the twitch Liam developed around the eyes at the use of that word. It was Mordin's favorite word to describe a particularly troubling situation, after all.

"Fine then." Ai said, as her barrage continued to go ignored. "Let's see this beast handle this. Aqua Needle." She whispered, as water whirled around her hand. As she struck forth, the water suddenly solidified itself into a blade, which to everyone's surprise sank into the Chimeramon's flesh, before it splintered and shot throughout the monsters body. For a moment Ai thought she had managed a lucky kill shot, but the Chimeramon's overpowering shriek and smash by another arm swipe told her otherwise, sending her flying backwards into a building several blocks away.

"That had to hurt!" Leonard stated thoughtfully, barely managing to dodge a strike himself. "Poor girl. She didn't know what hit her."

"Stop chattering to yourself and give them cover!" Warren shouted at his brother, before dashing in to give the beast a slash with his glaive-like spear, leaving behind a glowing wound. Chimeramon screamed and stumbled away, touching the blackening flesh of its cut tenderly. Then it smashed down the glowing warrior as he was making a flyby.

"Tch." Liam nearly spat in his annoyance. Ai was no doubt too hurt to be of use, and yet of course her little icon on his screen refused to light up, allowing him to return her to the DIC. It meant she still wanted to fight, but he wasn't sure she should. "Come on, there's got to be something I can do..." He gritted his teeth angrily, and as he did so, he could suddenly feel the pulsating force of DigiSoul resonate throughout him. "Right of course... it's a dramatic fight scene, after all. He smirked, before slamming his hand onto his DIC. "I have no idea what this is going to bring, but logic and reason don't seem to be at a premium right now! DNA, Full-Charge!"

Rikarde couldn't help but stare as a green glow surrounded his companion, feeding into the Digivice. He was honestly surprised. "Of course. Now I know why they classified you as a low Champion when it came to your DigiSoul." He said. "It's because you weren't in life or death situations like this. This entire thing is bringing out your natural ability in ways it couldn't before because you were constantly using it for other things, and never had the correct situation to bring out in a way like this."

"Or I'm a drama queen." Liam smiled.

"Or that." Rikarde conceded.

The light that burst forth from his Digivice, surprisingly enough, surrounded not only the tiny Fyuria, but Dolce as well. As the two began to glow, Warren and Leanard noticed a green rocket blow her way back into the fight, another aqua needle smashing into one of the Chimeramon's arms.

"Witchmon Digivolve to..." Dolce spoke, as her body became surrounded with light. Her hat shrank, the large brim vanishing, as her oversized hands shrunk down to normal proportions. Similarly her feet shrunk, before her entire body became covered in shiny armor covered in mystical symbols, a cape attaching itself to her back and fluttering in the wind. Only her chest remained relatively unprotected, as a cloth shirt tied the large shoulderpads to the waist guard. She then proceeded to twirl her broom, which transformed into a flaming sword which she gripped in her left hand, smiling. A glowing orb formed in her other hand, which she let go to orbit around her. "Mistymon!"

"Fanbeemon Digivolve too..." The little bee cried excitedly, as the light surrounded her. Her body suddenly lengthened and shrunk, her midsection becoming nearly nonexistent as her head reached forward. Then, two laser disks seemed to grow from where her shoulders were, as her wings rose, growing upwards now instead of strait out, and coating themselves in a shiny striped metal. Her bottom become much more dome like, her stinger extending dangerously as it became more metallic, and two more metallic spikes grew to support it. Her bottom then grew spikes in an odd circle, before arms that hadn't been there grew from the shoulders out. "Waspmon!"

"Drama queens." Rikarde groused, but for once he didn't seem quite as stressed. In fact, he seemed to have regained some hope for this combat, which seemed to make his own DigiSoul react positively, the gold-blue glow beginning to surround him as well.

Which then surrounded his partners, as Leonard gave a shout of surprise as he felt his own strength skyrocket, much like his brother who shot out of the crater he made with his own body. Down in the sea, Nemo blinked as he felt a vigor he never felt before enter his body which led to him dodging and attacking with far more energy than he had been.

And deep in the DATS headquarters, Layla's head shot up as she felt an odd but familiar sensation begin to flood her body.

Ai grabbed onto the giant's now injured arm as it roared at her. "Give me a hand!"

"Right!" Mistymon shouted confidently. "Fyuria!"

"Turbo Stinger!" Fyuria called furiously, as her thorax cannon flashed three times, each time blasting the monster inches closer to Ai's grinning form. As it did so, Dolce flew under the giant before slashing it's underside.

With a great heave, Ai lifted the giant over her head, before smashing it down into the sand behind her.

"Boys, with me!" Dolce shouted, before pointing her sword at the prone being. "Blast Fire!"

"Hell Masqurade!" Leonard cried, and suddenly he was everywhere at once upon the fallen monster, bashing and slashing it with all four of his arms.

"Spike," Warren held up his spear and began to whirl it at near light speeds, building up a blinding brightness in the crystal spear, before grabbing it firmly and throwing it down at Chimeramon with the sound of a sonic boom. "Buster!"

Chimeramon let out a scream as all three attacks pummeled it, the spear cutting off one of its arms while Dolce's sword emitted a jet of fire that bathed its battered body, scorching where Leonard wasn't at the current moment. It bashed Leonard away with one of its remaining arms, before spitting out another jet of emerald fire that had them all backing off. Even if they were all now confident they could win, the creature still had enough fight and power in it to knock them all back down again in a single strike.

"Thing will just not go down, will it?" Liam said, though his smile had finally returned.

"Yeah, doesn't look like he wants to take his nap." Rikarde noted, though for once he had a smile on his face as well, though it was a little bit bigger than Liam's. "Let's insist, shall we?"

"Indeed."

"Well boss lady, what we gonna do for the next pass?" Leonard asked Dolce. He and his brother were once more distracting the beast with a combination of Lucent Glow and Iritant Buzz, but who knew how long that would work to keep Chimeramon away?

Dolce seemed at a loss for a moment, before she smiled. "Let the ladies handle this one." She said with a grin, before she landed next to Ai. The two seemed to understand each other in an instant.

"Blast Fire!" Dolce called, shooting out a blast of fire from her sword that engulfed the beast.

"Aqua Needle!" Ai shouted, bringing a tidal wave of water only to smash into down onto the monster, changing its state from on fire to drowning. The next moment it was once again on fire, and then again drowning, and then a third time this cycle went through, as the monster sputtered and burned.

Chimeramon didn't seem to know how to take it, and was only roaring in fury and trying to swat at everyone and everything. After another couple of cycles of this as it stomped around trying to hit them, it suddenly stopped and made a strange sound. It actually went a little cross-eyed.

Then it was clutching at its chest, letting out choking sounds as it tried to breathe. It didn't seem to understand what was going on, but with the constant heating up and cooling down that was going on thanks to being bathed in hot fire and cold water in constant rotations, it was beginning to experience cardiac arrest.

The monster keeled over, its body giving out under it thanks to four constant assaults on its senses, giving out a rather sad sounding moan as it slumped over. With a great 'whump', its body hit the floor.

"Boom goes the dynamite." Liam said with a smile, before he collapsed to one knee. "Damn... now my body is starting to complain."

Rikarde patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it in time. Just try to keep it up for now, though, I'm thinking we might need to go help take out Dagomon now."

"I'm not sure... I can." Liam panted. "Two Ultimates and a Champion is much more drain then one of each."

"Well then, degenerate Dolce." Rikarde stated. "If you need to have a second Ultimate again, you can just Digivolve her again. I think two Champions will be less draining."

"You guys took it out already?!" Cassi asked incredulously from the communicator. "That's not fair! Azzy didn't get get to show himself off, my poor babu..."

Any celebration was cut off as a massive roar from out to sea signaled the sky turning pitch black, even with the sun still in the sky.

"**AGAIN AND AGAIN YOU INSECTS TEST ME!**" Dagomon raged, green lightning crackling around his form. The ones sent to battle him had been swatted away for the moment, leaving him to seethe. "**I GROW TIRED OF YOUR CONSTANT, PETTY RESISTANCE. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HUMILIATE ME WITH YOUR CONTINUED PERSISTENCE! HUMANS OF THE WEST COAST, PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!**"

With that, he hefted his trident and once more cut into the air. However, this time he caught an 'edge' of the portal with it, dragging the thing through the air. With a roar, he threw it over his opponent's heads, toward the city. The five watched in shock as it flew, the portal changing shape from a cut in the air to a glowing discus that stopped and expanded when it reached a certain point over the city.

"Well." Rikarde sighed, looking tiredly up at the massive spinning vortex of doom. "This is going to suck."

* * *

><p><strong>Afternote: Well. Looks like they didn't exactly succeed in stopping the portal. Get ready to see what Dagomon's ace in the hole is, I think I might actually surprise you. :P Or I won't. But either way, it's a thing that will happen.<strong>

**Only three more chapters until the end of this arc, guys. The insanity is not yet over.**


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